A nonprofit health center has added refugee health services as Chicago is seeing a spike in its refugee population. Heartland Health Centers’ Rogers Park clinic contracted with the state and federal government earlier this year to provide health screening for arriving refugees. To meet that mission, Heartland has boosted its refugee and immigrant services team, including hiring its first clinical director of refugee and immigrant health. The clinic has also added an outreach worker and a medical assistant who recently arrived from Afghanistan.
Heartland has provided initial health screenings to just more than 100 newly arrived refugees since late January, said Jehan Adamji, Heartland’s new clinical director of refugee and immigrant health. It continues to give health exams to about a dozen refugee patients each week.
More than 2,100 Afghan refugees have resettled in Illinois since September, according to the Tribune. The state is planning to welcome as many as 3,000 Afghans. The health screenings are required as part of being resettled in the United States, but they also allow Heartland to establish relationships with patients and provide ongoing health care for the population, Adamji said.
“These are patients who come to us with unique life experiences and complex needs,” Adamji said. “Now, we really have an opportunity to explore new care delivery models as we aim to improve quality and outcomes.”
Heartland is also able to provide access to mental health services, Adamji said. That includes visits with mental health clinicians, and Heartland’s refugee health team is working to establish more “informal” mental health resources, including in peer and group settings, Adamji said.
“We’re seeing a need for mental health [care], and we’re being creative in ways to address those needs,” she said.
Working on the refugee and immigrant health team is Dr. Hamdullah Hamid Rahmany, who practiced medicine in Kabul and came to Chicago in August. Hamdullah is fluent in Dari and Pashto, helping bridge a language barrier that can provide a roadblock to health services for refugees, Adamji said. The refugee and immigrant program at Heartland’s Devon Avenue clinic is still being ramped up. The group will assess how to best decrease barriers to health care for refugees as the program evolves.
Read more at BlockClubChicago.org.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.