The Centretown Community Health Centre (CCHC), along with five other Community Health Centres (CHCs) across Ottawa, is stepping up to provide urgent and primary care for Ottawa’s Syrian refugees.
The CHCs provide healthcare for refugees living in temporary housing, and ensure that they receive adequate services in a timely fashion. Once these refugees find long-term homes, the CHCs then work alongside the Ottawa Newcomer Health Centre in order to find permanent family doctors.
More than 1000 Syrian refugees have arrived in Ottawa – 824 of whom are government-assisted.
The six CHCs are offering Ottawa’s refugees primary care on-site at their temporary housing locations.
“There are four different housing sites and we are going in to provide urgent care,” says Lynsey James, the director of primary care at CCHC. “Primary care involves urgent care, vaccinations, and following up on previous illnesses.”
The initiative is making an immediate impact on refugee healthcare, with about 45 refugees treated over the last few days, according to James.
“We have already seen about 15 to 20 patients at each clinic over the past while.”
While many of the refugees do not speak English, the CHCs have a modest budget for interpreters. According to James, the language barrier is not proving to be a problem.
This Thursday, 150 community workers from Ottawa’s CHCs will meet at Dominion-Chalmers United Church for a workshop to collaborate with each other on how to further handle and improve refugee health issues.