Finding a doctor these days is tough. Compound that problem with a language barrier, limited funds and jumping into a completely new country – try navigating the health-care system on top of it.
Many newcomers to Canada, some hailing from impoverished or war-torn nations, have had to deal with these issues since the dawn of immigration.
That’s why a new clinic in Burnaby opened its doors – to connect newcomers with medical care during their transitional phase in Canada.
Global Family Care Clinic opened this fall in the Edmonds area. Its mandate is to help immigrants and refugees who have moved to the country in the last three years, and get medical treatment until they find their own family physician.
“So, coming here, they’re looking for a new start and a new beginning, and sometimes the challenges can be really hard,” Kimberley Reid, nurse practitioner heading the clinic, told the Burnaby NOW. “They’ll think once they get here that Canada is heaven and everything is OK, and then realizing that there’s still lots of challenges and things can be tough – especially with the language barriers and figuring everything out. And just starting.”
So far, Reid says the clinic has seen up to 80 people, including families, pregnant women and mothers with their small children, since it opened in September.
The clinic is a combined effort from the Fraser Health Authority and Burnaby Division of Family Practice. The division is a group of local family physicians that saw a need falling through the cracks of the conventional health-care system.
“A few of those doctors work at the Burnaby maternity clinic, and they were seeing a need for newcomers,” Reid said. “They could look after them during their pregnancy and for six weeks postpartum, but they didn’t have a family physician to be able to discharge the family to. And so that’s where they saw a need for it.”
The Edmonds area was chosen for its diverse population. According to 2006 census data, more than 49,000 people live in the area with more than half being immigrants (53 per cent) and visible minorities (59 per cent). Afghanistan, China, Phillipines, India, Taiwan, Sudan and even Pakistan are just some of the countries where newcomers come from.
“The Edmonds and the Highgate area is such a multicultural area, and so many of the referrals are people within even a five-block radius around the clinic,” she said. “Often people come and may start off in Vancouver, but due to expense there’s so many people moving in Fraser Health, and moving in the Burnaby, Surrey and Coquitlam areas.”
Patients are also educated about their own health and how B.C.’s system works. This includes information on good eating habits and exercise, making and keeping appointments, and taking medication.
The clinic is a transitional place where individuals and their families can go for 18 to 24 months while they settle into their communities. After that period, Reid says they’re given help to find a permanent doctor.
“People coming from war-torn areas where their day-to-day is survival, and oftentimes it is protecting yourself and your beliefs, and everything,” she added. “And to come to Canada, and our medical system is different. Coming in and (us) saying, ‘What can I do for your today?’ is a little bit different from what they’re used to, and having that time and ability to do so.
When going from having to worry about their life’s safety for decades, to having the capacity to think about their health – it’s a huge switch, Reid added.
The clinic offers interpreters, who speak more than 150 languages, to either come in person or interpret over the phone through Fraser Health and Provincial Language Service. The most-used languages so far have been Farsi, Korean and Arabic, Reid noted.
"At the clinic, we work as a team to help newcomers to Canada navigate the health-care system and settle into life in Canada," said Dr. Charlene Lui, family physician and chair of the Burnaby Division of Family Practice, in a media release. "In response to the often-insurmountable language barrier for newcomers, the clinic's capacity to work with interpreters at no additional cost to patients help us to ensure that patients' health-care needs are being addressed."
The clinic is open Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. A physician visits on Fridays. It is not a walk-in clinic and appointments must be made ahead of time. For more information, visit www.fraserhealth.ca.
