A clinic in the capital of Chad helped propel one Kalispell native’s career shift from working in global justice to connecting people with health-care needs.

At the time, Rose Till, 27, was teaching English in the landlocked country in North Africa. The republic was rebuilding after a series of battles in 2008. Between classes, Till would walk past a two-room health clinic. Part of it crumbled into the courtyard, from where it had recently been bombed.

People journeyed to the center for basic care. The doctors focused on widows, orphans and people living with HIV.

“If you want to talk about social justice, if you want to talk about anything sustainable, health care even at its most basic is an immense piece of that,” Till said. “You study things like global development with these big fluffy ideas – public health is a very tangible way to work towards that.”

Until that point, Till had a degree in French and another in global studies. After a year in Chad she went back to school to obtain a master’s degree in public health.

Till talked from her Kalispell office in the Flathead City-County Health Department as a health promotion specialist. She wore a hot pink blouse with a breast cancer awareness lanyard around her neck, attached to her identification card.

“I knew I would come home, I just didn’t expect it to be so soon,” she said. “But the year I spent overseas and the tools I gained in grad school helped me understand I could make a difference here.”

Her focus has been to connect women to the Montana Cancer Screening Program. The program offers free breast and cervical screenings to women without insurance, along with those who have insurance with a high deductible or meet the aging income guidelines.

“We serve women who want to get screened and know they should get screened but otherwise don’t have access,” Till said.

She said as the health-care landscape changed with the recent Medicaid expansion, the program shifted to help women navigate through the new, and often overwhelming, system.

It can be discouraging when women opt out of having a procedure available to them, she said.

“But we’re not here to force anyone to do it. We’re here to provide education about what’s most important and most importantly, how to get it,” she said. “If I can provide that access, it’s extremely fulfilling.”

Till said her heart is often split between home and overseas.

She was hired by the county months before news began to circulate about the 2014 Ebola outbreak. As reports grew, it became clear it was the largest outbreak of the disease since it was discovered in 1976.

Initial outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa near tropical rain forests. But the most recent outbreaks have occurred in West Africa and involved major urban areas as well as rural areas.

As Till adjusted to her new office, she stayed tuned to what was happening in West Africa.

“There was definitely that feeling of, ‘Darn it, if I didn’t have a job I would be there,’” Till said.

Job postings for long-term roles in the regions affected by the disease were filled with requests for French-speaking public-health workers.

“In another time, I would have dropped everything,” Till said. “But that was fleeting, because I had just gotten this job and was excited about it.”

But this January, she got to be a part of both worlds.

She temporarily left her job in Kalispell to work in Africa once again, this time alongside epidemiologists and local and state health department employees.

For six weeks Till was part of the Centers for Disease Control effort to mark Guinea as Ebola-free and to help bridge communication gaps between health employees, the local government and community.

The nation was in a 90-day period of extra surveillance after the country was declared Ebola-free. Till worked with the health communications team that often consulted with the epidemiology team on issues they were having in the field and responded by preparing messages to the communities about what they were trying to accomplish and how they could help.

“I was there just long enough to understand all of the dynamics of what was happening and how to really help,” Till said. “But if I could have stayed I could have done more.”

When she flew home she immediately missed being immersed in a new culture and the challenges that came with it — tapping back into the goals she had as a recent college graduate. But when she returned to the Flathead, she realized she works in a place where she understands the program and knows how to push it forward.

“I’ll go overseas again, but not as a lifelong career,” Till said. “I think my experiences have given me this feeling that the place where I could enact the most change, where I can have the most impact, is the community I belong to. My culture.”

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at [email protected].