On October 6, 1992 the Gay Men’s Health Service STI clinic opened in Dublin, providing free STI screenings and attendant services, one night a week for men who have sex with men. Now with four clinics a week, one of them a new monitoring clinic for people accessing PrEP online, its diverse team of hardworking staf see over 230 men a week. To celebrate 25 years of dedication to good sexual health, we meet just four of team GMHS.

Words by Stephen McCabe. Photos by Babs Daly.

“I applied for the post of manager two years ago. My background is nursing, sexual health and addiction and I worked in St James’s Hospital and drug services before. I manage the service, which includes clinical work with the service users, and setting up and co-ordination of new services.

Siobhán O’Dea Manager

A typical day here is very busy. We now have services four days a week, which is fantastic. That was our dream. We would love to see services five days a week. The fourth day is part of our new PrEP monitoring clinic, which monitors patients who are taking PrEP they’ve procured online.

Just over a year ago we opened our nurse-led asymptomatic screening clinic on Mondays. This has had a huge impact. Before that happened we were regularly turning away around 35 people every week. We just couldn’t cater for them. Hopefully with the new clinics we will be able to cater to everybody.What I like most about the role is the service users. I love working with people. That’s the reason I get out of the bed everyday. The building we’re in would be the toughest part of the job. It would be amazing if we had a properly resourced building with proper IT systems. That’s the dream.

We now have around 230 people attending the service each week. I think it’s a recipe that works. It’s a free service with happy staff who want to be here. They are amazing to work with, and I’m very lucky.”

“What I like most about the role is the service users. I love working with people.

Dr Susan Clarke Consultant

“I am an infectious disease consultant working in St James’ hospital and the GMHS STI clinic. We’ve been very lucky to have gotten a little bit more funding recently. For ages we just had two evening clinics, but this funding has allowed us to do more.

Our new Monday clinic started off as an extra sexual health clinic, but then it evolved into a nurse-led service. A huge amount of sexual health screenings can be delivered by appropriately trained nurses. If we got the funding for a doctor to be available at the Monday afternoon clinic, we could offer PEP [Post-exposure prophylaxis]. Currently we can’t.

Our Thursday PrEP [pre-exposure prophylaxis] monitoring clinic in Baggot Street is going really well. I’m there to do medical assessments on those who’ve bought PrEP online to make sure they have no medical issues.

There’s no question PrEP should be available here. It’s currently going through a process and hopefully at the end of that process it will be made freely available. I would hope that our PrEP monitoring clinic will very quickly become a PrEP providing clinic.”

“ I would hope that our PrEP monitoring clinic will very quickly become a PrEP providing clinic.

Paul Duggan Nurse and HPV Clinic Manager

“Two years ago I reached out to Siobhán O’Dea and explained my interest in the area of sexual health, and six months later I came to work here. As a staff nurse I am involved in results management, contacting the service users, organising appointments and follow-ups.

Historically each person here had individual roles, but these days everybody is learning and upskilling. We’re all getting to a point where you can walk in here and see one of six people and have everything done by that person.

All the staff are trained around chemsex, issues around drugs and alcohol, and STI training, so that every single contact we make with a service user is managed effectively.

My other role is running the HPV clinic. I meet with the service users before they commence the vaccine and give them an overview of it. We then schedule follow-up appointments and get them vaccinated.

People missing appointments is a major problem for us. The levels of energy and time spent following up with people who miss their appointments can be soul destroying. We just ask people to meet us halfway. When have a certain amount of appointments on a night we have to stop taking more, so if you miss your appointment it could have gone to somebody we’ve turned away. We don’t mind rescheduling appointments, people should just ring us.”

Diego Caxieta Outreach Worker and Clinic Assistant

“When I moved to Ireland I was working in a nursing home. Then the agency rang me and offered me a role in GMHS. I think it was because I’m Brazilian and could help with translation. When I first worked in the clinic, I set up the appointments and organised sending samples to the lab. My role has dramatically expanded since then. I help coordinate the floor with the clinic manager, do rapid testing and a lot of outreach work.

The outreach work can be challenging. We are targeting hard-to-reach populations and getting them to trust us and feel comfortable being open about their sexual and mental health issues is vital. We do a lot of outreach work online. We go on hook-up apps, it’s open and people can talk to us about anything. If they need a referral, sometimes we can fast-track them through the service. If they need counselling we can refer them to our counselling service.

Our outreach service has protected hours in Outhouse every Thursday from 2pm to 4pm. This is a really important addition to our service and has had a huge impact on those who’ve used it. One of the main aims of the outreach programme is reaching people who are uncomfortable accessing our mainstream services.

We’ve had a number of people access these services who’ve never had an STI test before. A lot of that was down to the confidence they felt after reaching out to us online. The good thing about the outreach work is that we try and normalise sexual health. Chemsex and associated addictions is an issue, but the important thing is that the vast majority don’t have a problem with it. For those that do, we do have supports available and can give them referrals.”

To find out more about the Gay Men’s Health Service clinics, visit gmhs.ie