Immigrants and Medical Care
Maryland NP Lois Wessel wrote an article for today's Washington Post about some of the challenges of providing health care to immigrants.
A 42-year-old political refugee from Sierra Leone, trained as a chemist in France, recently showed up -- desperate -- at the mobile health clinic in Silver Spring where I work as a nurse practitioner. He had lost his health insurance, he explained in fluent English, after his hours had been cut at the university cafeteria where he was working as a cook and dishwasher. By the time I saw him, he had been without his diabetes medication for several months, his blood sugar was dangerously high and he was suffering from kidney damage. I got him back on his drugs, but not before sharing his frustration that his insurer could just drop him.
Stories like this are all too common among the immigrant patients I see at the nonprofit community clinic. All are uninsured. Most have had limited preventive care, and many suffer from chronic diseases including asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes.
Link to Washington Post article
Link to Association of Clinicians for the Underserved Web site