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POPULATION
HEALTH

CARINGRFEOFRUSAGNEAENSTONIO’S

By Eden Bernstein and Fadi Al-Asadi

Walking into the San Antonio Refugee Health Clinic (SARHC) ulty from the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, and Allied
feels like stepping out of the country. The patients sit in two rows Health. St. Francis Episcopal Church graciously houses the clinic on
along a hallway that serves as a waiting room. They display an array Wednesday evenings every week. This location is vital to the clinic’s
of foreign garb including the vibrant colors of traditional African success because it is walking distance from many of the resettlement
wear and elegant jewelry from Nepal. Your ears are inundated with communities, and lack of access to transportation is one of the many
the sounds of languages you may not have known existed, like Ro- barriers to healthcare in this community.
hingya and Karen. In the background, there is a frenzy of medical,
nursing, and dental students running round as they tend to their pa- Another barrier is the lack of access to health insurance. The fed-
tients’ needs. eral government only offers refugees health benefits for 6 to 8
months upon their arrival. For many, this is not enough time to in-
Escaping persecution, violence, and natural disasters from every tegrate into a foreign culture, learn English, and find a job that offers
part of the globe, roughly 4,000 refugees have been relocated to healthcare coverage. In certain cases, this is further complicated by
Bexar County over the last 5 years. The SARHC is a free clinic ded- a lack of education, difficulty in learning a new language (a common
icated to serving this population with the help of students and fac- challenge for many of the elderly refugees), and mental illness stem-

16 San Antonio Medicine • February 2017