Category: health issues

Breathe a sigh of relief: CDC says screening is catching refugee TB cases before they get here

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, as a result of the beefed-up screening local health departments have been spared $15 million in costs to treat refugees so far, says the CDC!

Wyoming are you listening!  Medical treatment for refugees is partly your local health department’s responsibility.  The Wyoming governor thinks a refugee program for Wyoming would be a freebie!

World Health Organization: TB drugs cause side affects that makes compliance difficult. http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/quality_safety/safety_efficacy/projects/en/

From the Centers for Disease Control via NPR (most cases of TB in US can be traced back to refugees and immigrants):

Hundreds of people with tuberculosis wishing to come to the U.S. have been stopped before they reached U.S. borders, says a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [Are the 20,000 plus asylum seekers tested on the border too?—ed]

Physicians overseas picked up more than 1,100 cases in prospective immigrants and refugees prior to their arrival in the U.S. The cases include 14 people with multidrug-resistant TB, the CDC says.

The agency credits beefed up recommendations for pre-travel screening that require newer, more sensitive sputum-culture tests. Of the 1,100 cases detected, about 660 would not have been identified under old guidelines.

Keeping people with TB out while they get treatment has saved the U.S. about $15 million in costs that would’ve been incurred for treatment here — costs the CDC says would’ve been mostly borne by U.S. public health departments.

[….]

“In addition to creating major savings in health care costs, the program ensures that immigrants and refugees get prompt care and correct treatment,” said Martin Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, in a statement.

The U.S. has a very low rate of tuberculosis, even as the disease continues to rage in many countries around the world. Most cases that are identified here can be traced back to an immigrant or refugee.

The CDC says 65 percent of people with TB in the U.S were born in other countries. [Did the other 35% catch TB from an immigrant or refugee—ed]

Take a few minutes and watch this shocking film about how refugees with drug-resistant TB are being readied to come to America!

See our ‘health issues’ category with many more posts on health problems that come with refugee resettlement.

The expansion of Medicaid is a “key indicator for refugee placement”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Got Obamacare?

If your state is one of those which has expanded Medicaid as a result of Obamacare then yours is a prime target for refugee resettlement.

I don’t know when they did it, but the feds and their contractors seem to have chosen the word “placement” over “resettlement” in their government lingo.

Whatever they are calling it, they are on the hunt for new “welcoming” locations to start seed communities of refugees because many of the old places are saturated and complaining—think Lewiston, ME, Manchester, NH, Nashville, TN, Atlanta, GA and most recently Amarillo, TX.  All “pockets of resistance!”

So, back to ‘Key Indicators for Refugee Placement FY2014’.…

One of their key indicators for the desirability (the “capacity”) of your community as a placement site  is whether your state has expanded Medicaid!

From the Introduction:

Affordable Care Act

ORR [Office of Refugee Resettlement] considers placement to be a key element in facilitating a refugee’s successful adjustment. One major factor that may affect placement is the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Accordingly this year’s data has incorporated information on heath access determinants including updates on states that plan to expand Medicaid during the final implementation phase of ACA, and states that have ruled Medicaid expansion out.

Then check out the handy data on which states have and which states haven’t expanded Medicaid (pages 11, 12, 13).

CDC fears “suicide contagion” in Bhutanese refugee population

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is yet one more story on the high rate of suicide in the Bhutanese refugee population in the US.  This time from New Hampshire via WBUR (Boston’s NPR station).  Hat tip ‘pungentpeppers.’

This New Hampshire woman’s father hanged himself on Thanksgiving day.  He was 73.

We only noted a link to the New Hampshire suicides in a post in January where we learned some refugees remaining in the camps were upset at the UN for splitting up families.  You might want to revisit that post because it gives some background as to how we have resettled 70,000 Bhutanese since 2007.   The number in the WBUR story is wrong.

The interview (read about the New Hampshire case) mentions the disappointment some refugees have when the US does not meet their expectations and with the Bhutanese it is pointed out that their culture does not have the same taboos about suicide as some other ethnic groups, or most Americans.

So, as the numbers grow, there is some speculation that “suicide contagion” could set in.

WBUR:

The numbers trouble the Centers for Disease Control, which began investigating the deaths a few years ago. By early 2012, it had 16 cases to look at from a three-year period. The CDC calculated a suicide rate higher than the national and global average, and it hasn’t changed since then.

SHARMILA SHETTY: The Bhutanese and I think in general just that part of the world, the perspective on suicide is very different from I think a lot of other populations and ethnicities.

LESSARD (interviewer): Dr. Sharmila Shetty was a lead investigator on the CDC report. She says the Hindu and Buddhist cultures don’t have strict taboos against suicide as, say, Muslim or Western cultures do. But beyond that, Shetty says the causes can be myriad and frustratingly unknowable.

[….]

SHETTY: There is this phenomenon called suicide contagion.

LESSARD: Shetty explains that if you know someone who ends his or her life, or you hear about it, you are more likely to do it yourself. That’s why she says it’s best to address the problem proactively. Following the CDC’s initial report, the national Office of Refugee Resettlement put a suicide hotline number on its front webpage.

Sounds good, but I wonder how many refugees call Washington if they are thinking about suicide?  Would you?

UN tries, fails, to stop female genital mutilation in Somaliland

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Once in awhile the UN does something we can support.

As you read this news account, know that many African refugees in America (and in 30 other countries!) still believe in this brutal practice (adding “vibrant” cultural diversity/enrichment to your community). 

From Japan Times:

HARGEISA, SOMALIA – The 30 Somali teenagers — both boys and girls — all agreed: Female genital mutilation is harmful and the practice should be abandoned. But what they really meant, they revealed moments later, is that girls should still have their genitalia cut — just not sewn shut.

Read ‘Infidel’ for a personal account of the mutilation Somalis believe is required of them under Islamic law.

“It’s our tradition, and if the girls are not subjected to ‘suna’ (cutting) she will not be accepted for marriage,” said Asthma Ibrahim Jabril, 17.

The students, who are part of an after-school club in Somaliland that the U.N. children’s agency helps fund, discuss issues like child labor, early marriage and female genital mutilation in a classroom with several large hearts scrawled along the walls. Somaliland is a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia that has remained largely peaceful during Somalia’s decades of conflict.

UNICEF is weaving a delicate campaign to educate communities in Somaliland about the harms of female genital mutilation and to get leaders, who are meeting there this month to debate the practice, to denounce it.

Child rights advocates in nearly 30 countries are fighting to reduce the number of girls subjected to the cutting of their genitalia, a practice that goes back thousands of years and that Somali practitioners often link to Islamic requirements.

Egyptian pharaohs blamed, not Islam

Experts try to convince them that this is not a religious practice, but they are having none of it!

Officials with UNICEF tried to underscore that they do not believe female genital mutilation is required by Islam, though it is not strictly practiced by Muslims. Haydar Nasser, a UNICEF official who is Iraqi by birth but now a Canadian citizen, told the leaders that they were following a custom first practiced by the Egyptians some 6,000 years ago, long before Islam was founded.

“So the question to you to discuss today is why as a Muslim practice do you employ a pharaoh practice, pharaohs who went to hell because they are ‘kaffirs,’” he said, using the Arabic word for someone who doesn’t believe in Islam.

Thanks, but no thanks!

At the end of the daylong meeting that UNICEF had hoped would end in a decision to abandon female genital mutilation, the religious leaders — including the minister of religious affairs — say they could not agree to abandon suna. The practice of female genital cutting will continue.

I’m glad to see that the UN is trying, it’s better than turning a blind eye in the name of cultural relativism.

Utica NY: Latest concern is refugees driving drunk

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
In 2005, the UN was promoting Utica as the “Town that Loves Refugees.”
http://www.unhcr.org/426f4c772.html

Utica police and judges say the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees needs to develop a program to stem a growing problem of refugees driving under the influence.

Check out the information at the Resource Center’s website, here.  It was established by the Lutheran contractor, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

The largest number of refugees resettled there come from Bosnia and the refugee population is now 12% of the city.  In another report I saw that the refugee population is 1/4th of the “welcoming” city’s population, but that seems like a stretch to me.

Here is a list of the 31 countries represented by refugees in Utica.

From the Utica Observer-Dispatch (Hat tip:  ‘pungentpeppers’)  Emphasis is mine:

First, it was car seats.

Then, it was driving lessons.

The next expansion of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugee’s driving education program? Teaching non-native populations the dangers of driving under the influence.

“Driving while intoxicated is a foreign concept to them,” said Alban Uryniak, traffic and safety instructor for the center and former Utica Police Department sergeant.

Jean Skahan, training manager for the driving safety programs at the center, said in an email that drunk and distracted driving “is a growing problem among certain refugee groups.”

She said that Utica police and judges have requested the refugee center concentrate on this issue this year.

Most times when a refugee is involved in an arrest, Utica police Lt. Steve Hauck said alcohol is involved, though it is not always in a car.

“Sometimes, it’s driving; sometimes it’s domestic,” he said.

In an effort to combat the problem, the refugee center is pairing with the Oneida County STOP DWI Program to eventually offer workshops that would teach interpreters ways to communicate with the various refugee and immigrant populations about the subject, how to prevent it and explaining what might happen if they’re involved in an accident.

Language barriers are not the only things that could get in the way of the refugee communities that will participate in the workshops. Driving culture is just as varied as the languages people speak, Uryniak said.  [But, that diversity gives us strength—right!—ed]

We have several previous posts on Utica, here.  And, here, is one about a big food stamp fraud bust there.