The Canadian Association of Community Health Centres (CACHC), which represents Community Health Centres (CHCs) across Canada, is among the many organizations mobilizing in response to the arrival of many more refugees to our country.
The association is in communication with the federal Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Ministry of Health, and other relevant federal agencies to boost Canada’s overall response. Efforts are being led by the association’s National Refugee Health Working Group, made up of Community Health Centre leads from across the country.
CACHC and its Working Group members are collaborating to advance knowledge-exchange and resource-sharing amongst Community Health Centres that provide refugee care and support, with emphasis on plans for Syrian refugee newcomers. This also includes support for CHCs in rural and suburban settings, some of which are expecting to welcome refugee clients to their health centres for the first time. The working group is also preparing a baseline national report on the role of Community Health Centres in refugee care and support across Canada, and developing policy recommendations for the federal government.
“Our immediate goal is to better coordinate settlement, care and support activities for the 50,000 Syrian and other refugee newcomers expected to arrive in Canada by the end of 2016,” says Scott Wolfe, Executive Director of the association. However, he says that the association is underscoring the need for federal investment in a more integrated and systemic primary health care response for refugees, citing current efforts as a critical opportunity to ‘get it right’.
“Healthcare and social services available to refugees across the country are a patchwork, with disproportionate emphasis on the first year or two after arrival,” Wolfe says. “We need to make sure that refugees have access to appropriate care, which should include access to a Community Health Centre so that they not only receive immediate attention, but also the sort of integrated, team-based care and support they require beyond their first two years in Canada.”
Examples from Community Health Centres across Canada reveal decades of experience providing ongoing care and support to refugee newcomers, as well as how CHCs are stepping up to play a critical role in Canada’s settlement effort for Syrian refugees.
In Winnipeg, local CHCs including Mount Carmel Clinic, Klinic Community Health, Nine Circles CHC, Women’s Health Clinic and others have welcomed refugee newcomers for decades. They are now participating in provincial planning committees to develop care and service plans for incoming Syrian refugees and are collaborating to develop in-house strategies to accommodate the upcoming surge in demand for services. They are also identifying capacity and processes to support refugee newcomers in need of specific types of care such as maternal and child care, HIV care, and other areas of special need.
In Vancouver, Evergreen Community Health Centre, Mid-Main Community Health Centre, and REACH Community Health Centre are participating in local and provincial partnership activities and service delivery for newly-arrived refugees. Evergreen CHC’s Bridge Clinic is the central refugee health assessment centre for Vancouver, providing primary care and support to the majority of newly-arrived Syrian refugees in Vancouver; Mid-Main CHC’s dental centre is likely to welcome Syrian refugees in need of dental care; and REACH CHC is looking to extend its refugee counseling and support services, organized through the centre’s Multicultural Family Centre.
Throughout Ontario, the province expected to welcome the largest number of refugees over the coming year, CHCs in urban, rural and northern communities are mounting what is undoubtedly the largest Community Health Centre response across Canada. These efforts are bolstered by support from the Association of Ontario Health Centres. In several Ontario cities, large-scale Community Health Centre and partner collaboratives, such as Refugee 613 in Ottawa, are providing primary health care and social service coverage across the entire region.
And, in other major centres – Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Fredericton and Saint John – local Community Health Centres are also stepping in, supplementing the significant demands they already face in serving diverse local populations with complex needs.
“Community Health Centres across Canada have a long history as pillars of local emergency and humanitarian responses, leveraging their expertise, infrastructure and community relationships,” says Wolfe.
“As they did during SARS, the Montreal ice storm, recent floods in Alberta and Northern Ontario, and Canada’s settlement of Vietnamese and other refugee groups, CHCs are once again stepping up as a major component of Canada’s emergency and humanitarian response fabric. It’s time to better support and scale-up access to Community Health Centres so that existing CHCs can play this role without hemorrhaging their resources and so that more communities have access to these innovative, team-based primary health care services.”
More information regarding CACHC and national Community Health Centre activities to support refugee newcomers may be found at www.cachc.ca/refugeehealth (link is external)
