We would also like to give a special thanks to our interns, volunteers from UforChange, SJT youth photographers, staff at the Wellesley Community Centre, and friends and colleagues who contributed both directly and indirectly to help make this event a success!

We invite you to SEE, HEAR, and JOIN the voices of St. James Town youth residents speaking out about their neighbourhood and its implications for their health!

Wellesley Institute’s SJT Initiative has partnered with UforChange to explore the social, economic, and physical factors that affect health in this community and to effectively use all the space in the area.  A group of St. James Town youth residents used photography and storytelling to voice how the attributes of their neighbourhood are affecting their health.

Tuesday August 17, 2010

Anytime between 5:30 and 8:30 pm

Wellesley Community Centre (rooms A & B)

495 Sherbourne St. (corner of Wellesley & Sherbourne)

Free Food & Refreshments! Take home if fasting!

Download our flyer and invitation card and share with your colleagues, family and friends!

Youth Community Voice Forum & Expo Flyer

Youth Community Voice Forum & Expo Invitation Card

The two policy briefs, Access to Health and Social Services and Impacts of the Physical Environment, are based on the findings from our qualitative research work with newcomer immigrants of St. James Town.  The briefs provide suggestions for the government to invest in and enhance immigrant integration and to support better health and wellbeing of newcomer immigrants.

Report: Exploring the Link Between Neighbourhood and Newcomer Immigrant Health

Policy Brief: Availability and Access to Health and Social Services

Policy Brief: Impacts of the Physical Environment on Health and Wellbeing

Below are some of the pictures we took at the event.

In her presentation, investigator Roxana Salehi identified an interesting finding: newcomer youth are cautious of going to clinics where staff members or physicians share their own ethnic/cultural/religious background.  They fear that a) the staff will tell their parents, and b) their shared background may produce an environment of judgment and general discomfort.  These findings were echoed by several service providers attending the forum and some asserted that once trust was established, newcomer youth prefer staff members who share their background.

Language plays an interesting role in newcomer youth’s preferences.  The report indicates that “linguistically accessible services” is defined by newcomer youth as places where they are able to ask questions and relate to interpreters.  Feeling comfortable asking questions and having a doctor who understands them is more important to newcomer youth than having someone who speaks their language.  An exception to this finding is among youth with poor language proficiency where it can helpful talking to someone who speaks their language.  It was noted, however, that the presence of an interpreter can pose a barrier to open communication, as trust needs to be built between additional people.

Download the full Toronto Teen Survey Report for more information about how Toronto teens feel about sexual health and sexual health care services.

Investigators: Sarah Flicker, June Larkin, Robb Travers, Jason Pole, Adrian Guta, Roxana Salehi, & Susan Flynn.

Toronto Teen Survey (2009). Newcomer and Longer-term Immigrant Bulletin. Planned Parenthood Toronto, Toronto, ON.

Principal Organizations: Ryerson University

Investigators: Dr. Sepali Guruge, Dr. Parvathy Kanthasamy

Participants: Older Tamil immigrant women

Research Methods: Interviews and focus groups

Here is the presentation:

The truth is that we’re not quite as different from our neighbors as we think we are. Canada, too, has a very real, and very unhealthy, population of medically uninsured individuals. And the worst part is that here, hardly anyone knows.

People are uninsured for various reasons, dividing the uninsured population into different groups. There are legal citizens who are not covered by public health insurance because they are waiting to be eligible for the provincial plan, visitors who stay longer than their visas allow, and rejected refugee claimants who remain in the country during the appeal process. Because there are different reasons for being uninsured, the policy solutions for breaking through the access barriers for each of these groups are also different.

What a lot of people don’t know is that permanent, landed immigrants do not have access to our universal health care system right away. Four provinces in Canada, including Ontario, impose a three-month waiting period before new immigrants can become eligible for the provincial health insurance plan. Welcome to Canada! You better not get sick for the next three months.

And possibly even more than three months. According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), it actually takes over two years, on average, to receive a provincial health card. Without an OHIP card, citizens of Ontario have very little access to health care services if they cannot afford to pay for private insurance.

Due to the three-month waiting period, the health needs of new Canadian immigrants are left unmet. There are some clinics that allow uninsured patients to see medical professionals for free, but this is a short-term, band-aid solution. Basic primary care can be provided in this manner, but without an OHIP card, diagnostic tests and other essential medical services cannot be ordered. Community Health Centers (CHCs) have some funds for covering a portion of the hospital bills of the uninsured, but this, too, isn’t a comprehensive solution. We need to start by increasing capacity at CHCs so that they can properly serve patients who may not yet have their government health cards. Most importantly, we need to follow in the footsteps of other provinces and eliminate the inequitable three-month waiting period.

Welcoming new Canadians to our country but denying them access to government health insurance has resulted in a clear gap in coverage. We like to say that we treat health care as a right, but our actions towards newcomers reflect quite the opposite. It’s time to stop pretending that Medicare reaches everyone and to start formulating concrete solutions for improving the health status of one of Canada’s most vulnerable populations.

Update:

In February 2010, the Women’s College Hospital Network on the Uninsured, in partnership with the Wellesley Institute, York University,  and Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing University of Toronto, convened the first-ever Research Conference on Healthcare for the Undocumented and Uninsured.  Innovative research was presented that identified the most vulnerable groups, analyzed the harmful impact on their health of being denied access, and set out organizational and policy directions to address these barriers.