An article in WHYY News and Information gives more information about the welcome that newly arrived refugees face in Philadelphia. Some refugees have waited as long as three months just for health screening.
The Philadelphia region is seeing a new influx of political refugees from the South Asian nation of Bhutan. Like other refugees, they are entitled to eight months of medical coverage. But providing that care is a challenge.
Jefferson Family Medicine dedicates Wednesday afternoons to refugees. Nearly three years ago, when the clinic opened, many of the refugees came from Myanmar, then a few Iraqis, some Eritreans. Now, it’s the ethnic Nepalis from Bhutan. Clinic director Dr. Marc Altshuler says one of the first steps is to make sure everyone has had their shots.
Altshuler: The kids cannot go to school without vaccines, and if the kids don’t go to school the parents can’t go out and get a job.
The Nationalities Service Center, a resettlement agency, helped launch the Jefferson clinic. Now, demand for the clinic’s services has the agency looking for other providers capable of the same type of one-stop care…
…Newly arrived refugees should have an initial health screen within 30 days, but it took more than three months for Bagi Adhikari and her adult son Kamal to get in to see Dr. Packer… here
So a question becomes why continue to place more new refugees in Philadelphia if health screenings are delayed so dangerously long? It’s not like the city is a particularly safe place for the refugees’ children, here. Of course resettlement agencies such as the Nationalities Service Center isn’t going to advertise to the State Department that their area has late health screenings and dangerous schools. That will have to wait until the State Department does one of its once-in-a-decade inspections. Even then, the State Dept. will simply note the problems and suggest that the Center make some attempt to correct it. In the meantime years have passed in which refugees have gone months at a time without medical care, and have also been harassed, attacked, and assaulted on the streets and in the schools. That’s how our refugee resettlement program operates.
The refugees can have serious health problems while they sit for months without medical care. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is also a common ailment.
…The ailments differ with each refugee group but latent tuberculosis, malnutrition and malaria are common. When the Adhikaris arrived last winter, both were a little underweight…
…Altshuler: We spend time asking ‘Why did they become refugees?’ cause that can help us figure out … Were they exposed? Were they beaten? But the bigger picture is, are they sometimes at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder because of what they went through? …
…Altshuler: We see significant mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder. We’ve been trying to collect a lot of data on the refugees that we’ve been seeing, and I think our rates of PTSD are probably two to three times higher than the national rate.
All are adjusting to a new city and culture; Altschuler says some also have stubborn, decades-old hurts that resurface once they’re safe…
…The Nationalities Services Center recently hosted a training session for health providers on the medical and mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers.
It seems as though the main reason the US refugee resettlement program resettled refugees to Philadelphia is because a national volag, the USCRI, happens to have an office there – Nationalities Service Center. Is that really a “rational plan for resettlement”? That’s what the volags have to prove to the State Department each year in their annual report (see Guidelines for Participants).
Strategy for Site Selection
Headquarters should have in place a coherent strategy for selecting resettlement sites and placement of individual refugee cases. That strategy should show evidence of adaptability to new circumstances, e.g., influx of new ethnic groups, welfare or economic changes in any given location. Such strategy should also provide adequate justification for continued use of a site with poor employment outcomes.
But the USCRI essentially just recommends all the places where it already has affiliate offices as good refugee resettlement sites. Therefore, long after South Philly is no longer a rational place to resettle refugees, the State Department continues to let its contractor (USCRI) place refugees there.
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
