Tag: Refugee

One-stop resource toolkit launched on refugee and migrant health

WHO developed a Refugee and migrant health toolkit, a web-based one-stop comprehensive platform of tools and resources, to support the global, regional, and country efforts in implementing health and migration-related activities.

Migration and displacement often impact people’s physical and mental health and well-being, especially for those who were forced to flee their homes. It can leave particular impact on people displaced across borders or within their own country and those in an irregular situation or with vulnerabilities and specific health and protection needs.  

Refugee and migrants could face many factors such as their migratory status; national migration policies; and linguistic, cultural, economic, and social barriers that often hinder their access to health services.

It is essential that countries have strong and inclusive health systems equipped with the necessary knowledge and tools to help decision-makers and health personnel meet the health needs and rights of these populations and advance the health and migration agenda.

“We developed the toolkit to assist countries in designing, developing, and implementing health and migration policies, strategies and services based on evidence and technical soundness,” said Dr Santino Severoni, Director of the WHO Health and Migration Programme. “We hope that Member States will use this single-source, operational and user-friendly toolkit in the implementation of health and migration-related activities, including the Global Action Plan (GAP) “Promoting the health of refugees and migrants, 2019-2023”, and regional action plans with similar goals.”

A one-stop source of information, guidance and tools

The toolkit contains modules for each of the six priorities of the GAP 2019-2023, along with 18 tools:

  • Module 1: short- and long-term public health interventions to promote refugee and migrant health. This module’s tools highlight common communicable and noncommunicable diseases, including mental health, public health emergencies, and immunization.
  • Module 2: mainstreaming refugee and migrant health in the global, regional,

‘About to live my dream’: Refugee health-care worker on track to become a registered nurse

One of the first health-care workers to arrive in Nova Scotia after being recruited as a refugee from Kenya is now on her way to becoming a registered nurse.

Agnes Lomoro was initially hired as a continuing care assistant (CCA) to a long-term care facility in New Glasgow in 2021 but has qualified for a new pilot program to gain her credentials as a nurse.

With a nursing degree from Kenya, the 28-year-old qualified for the accelerated, seven-month bridging pathway program being offered by Nova Scotia Health.

“It’s a good opportunity for sure to know I am working towards growing myself,” Lomoro said. “It means I can be about to live my dream of working as a nurse.”

It is a dream she has had since she was a child. She was eight when civil war broke out in her home country of South Sudan. The war meant there was no medical care and her family was often forced to hide in the forest to avoid battles. 

Passion to work

One of her sisters died as a baby after contracting tetanus because there was no hospital nearby, Lomoro recalls.

Lomoro fled to Uganda before settling in Kenya. Even though she later earned a nursing degree in Nairobi, her refugee status made it difficult for her to work there. 

So she jumped at the chance to move to Nova Scotia to work as a continuing care assistant when she heard employers were hiring. Her goal was always to work toward becoming a nurse.

“I’m so happy I am coming in to bring my skills and help my community and that really makes me feel like I am putting what I practised and my passions to work,” she said.

Retention and advancement efforts

Lomoro is one of a group of 15 internationally

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