Health centres and immigrant services must work together to improve the health of immigrants, which deteriorates soon after their arrival in Canada, by providing more collaborative healthy living programs, the directors of health centres in Centretown say.
Newcomers to Canada are healthier than Canadian-born residents when they arrive, but can expect their health to decline the longer they live here, according to Statistics Canada. The agency’s research shows that after living in Canada for 10 years or longer, immigrants report being less healthy than Canadian-born residents and their mortality rates tend to rise the longer they’re here.
Christina Marchant, director of community health promotion and early years at Centretown Community Health Centre, says she’s noticed more newcomers coming into her centre’s immigrant clinic.
“A lot of it has to do with being in a new country and adapting to new systems,” she says. “We feel it’s time to draw Centretown-wide attention to it.”
Marchant says there are many reasons why immigrants encounter health problems when they immigrate to Canada, including the stress of settlement, language barriers, income issues, and lack of social support, healthy food and physical activity.
According to the Ottawa Neighbourhood Study, about 34 per cent of Centretown residents immigrated to Canada between 1997 and 2006.
This is seven per cent higher than the city-wide average.
Community health centres play an important role in making sure immigrants in Centretown understand how they can avoid health risks, says Jack McCarthy, executive director of the Somerset West Community Health Centre.
“Our challenge is to adapt our message so that we’re getting it out there,” he says. “Like offering services in the language people understand so it fits their needs.”
But McCarthy says instead of supporting health-centre programs, governments tend to fund hospitals and drugs. This disregards vulnerable newcomers who have a hard time understanding and navigating their way through the system, he adds.
McCarthy suggests governments “strategically invest” in the community and settlement sectors.
“We have to realign our system to focus on strengthening communities, their agencies and health centres to meet the needs of newcomer populations,” he explains. “If we don’t start that realignment, I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of change and people are going to continue to struggle.”
The government seems to be sticking to the status quo, says Rupert Yeung, manager of client services at Ottawa Chinese Community Services Centre in Centretown.
Last year, his agency lost 30 per cent of its funding after Citizenship and Immigration Canada made deep cuts, forcing his centre to let go of some settlement workers who assisted Chinese immigrants, he says.
Lucya Spencer, executive director of Immigrant Women Services Ottawa, says without the support of community groups, new Canadians are often lost and uninformed about available resources. Lack of funding limits the ability of agencies to reach out to newcomers, she says.
Spencer says there is a need for collaboration between all parties involved with the immigrant population.
“Partnership can go a long way in reaching more people in our communities,” she says. “By teaming up, we will have a bigger impact.”
McCartney and Marchant agree that in order to provide the best possible support to new Canadians, connecting and collaborating with service groups – which are in regular contact with immigrants – is essential.
Yeung says as a result of funding cuts, his centre has already turned to community health centres for support.
“It has reached a very critical point,” he says. “We are very concerned and not sure how it’s going to turn out.”
Marchant says she hopes with more programming and attention to “policy advocacy,” newcomer health will improve.
“What we’d like to do is reverse the newcomer health effect,” she says. “People who come to Canada will be healthy, stay healthy, and raise healthy children.