Published: February 03, 2009 08:36 am      

Disease fighter

In 2000, Johanne Bradley made a mission trip to Haiti, where she survived machine gun fire and an attempted kidnapping. With a group of eight nurses, she took an 11-hour, bone-jarring ride into the mountains to set up clinics and inoculate 3,500 Haitian children against hepatitis.

A nurse for more than 30 years, Bradley also has witnessed tuberculosis and sees TB as a critical health concern and cause for action among the elderly community.

That’s why this passionate nurse is opening her own business in Mankato — JB Senior Services Consulting. Her goal is to educate senior living complex owners, builders and administrators on how to implement infectious disease controls.

“I love people. I hate illness. I hate infectious diseases. They don’t need to affect people if proper procedures are followed,” Bradley said.

According to the Minnesota Department of Health, Minnesota seniors believe that “tuberculosis no longer exists in the United States.”

That is not the case. In 2008, Bradley completed her master’s in gerontology and infectious diseases in seniors at Minnesota State University and wrote her thesis on multi-drug resistant TB in Minnesota.

TB is increasing in Minnesota, even though it is decreasing slowly in the United States. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, 238 cases were reported in 2007. About 15 percent of these cases were resistant to one or more drugs.

Bradley has found that Minnesota has the highest risk in TB contact among the elderly due to a large aging population, immigration and the lack of infectious control measures at senior living complexes.

“The older you are, the less immunity you have,” Bradley said.

More than 13,000 cases of TB in the United States were reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2007. Worldwide, TB infects more than 9 million people per year. It can be transferred by coughing and usually infects the lungs. On average, a person infected with TB infects 10 to 15 people, states the World Health Organization.

The fact TB is now resistant to multiple drugs complicates the issue. It used to take one drug and nine months of treatment to cure TB, but now it takes four drugs and 35 months, Bradley said. She compares the potent drug regime to chemotherapy.

“People go though it once and swear they never want to go through it again.”

Infectious disease controls

A proper disease control regime would help protect seniors against the gamut of infectious diseases including TB, HIV/AIDS, SARS, influenza and avian influenza.

“Senior residence building owners are aware that infection control is an up and coming issue that requires problem solving,” said Bradley.

Bradley has a solution. First, she recommends that new senior complexes be built with infection control centers that use a reverse flow air system like isolation systems used in many hospitals.

“Hundreds of people die very year due to poor isolation,” Bradley said.

When seniors can be isolated comfortably in their own apartment building, it may reduce hospitalization and health care costs. One isolated apartment unit has the potential to protect 400 people, estimates Bradley.

Next is education and training for staff on proper disease control measures. Proper disease controls include hand washing and protective gear such as face masks that can be disposed of before attending to another person.

Her seminars — the first one is scheduled in March — will fulfill continuing education requirements for those in attendance.

Bradley can also administer and coordinate TB testing and vaccines.

From nurse to businesswoman

Last summer, Bradley started creating a business plan with the assistance of Bryan Stading, small business facilitator for the Riverbend Center for Entrepreneurial Facilitation in Mankato.

Based on feasibility studies, Stading believes Bradley’s idea is “primed to be plucked.” Powerful viruses and a growing aging population create a demand for Bradley’s services, Stading said.

“When you look at her business model, you have to say that makes all the sense in the world,” he said.

The last thing Bradley expected was to start a home-based medical business at the age of 54. She thought she would be traveling the world to care for sick people.

“I’m a reluctant businessperson. This isn’t what my life was going to be,” she said.

Bradley was born in England, the daughter of an Air Force officer. Like her father, she joined the Air Force. She served as a nurse from 1975 to 1983 in Louisiana and West Virginia.

During the 1990s, she worked at the Riverside Medical Center, a teaching hospital for the University of Minnesota. She held dying patients in her arms as AIDS and infectious diseases were coming to the forefront.

As a public health nurse, Bradley attended to people in crack houses in north Minneapolis. Outside, her car was protected by a “crack house sentinel” hiding a gun in his coat. Inside, she saw adults and children with multi-drug resistant TB. TB is a leading killer of people with AIDS, due to a weakened immune system. And many IV drug users have AIDS.

She left nursing in 1999 and moved to North Mankato in 2003 for graduate school.

“I love medicine. My graduate degree has helped me bring it all into focus,” Bradley said. “I’m ready to go out and help people with all my experience and wisdom.”