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News feature: Atlanta's Haitian Medical Emergency Hospitality Program
23 Feb 2010 20:51:00 GMT
 Source: Church World Service
Website: Website: http://www.churchworldservice.org

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Background

•  Haiti earthquake 2010

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•  Health and diseases

•  AIDS pandemic

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February 23, 2010

Church World Service's affiliate Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services (RRISA) is the Atlanta agency charged with organizing community support for the 45 emergency medical evacuees and accompaniers who've been brought to Atlanta to date and any others who might still come. RRISA's staff has extensive experience resettling refugees, Katrina evacuees and Cuban/Haitian entrants.

RRISA Executive Director Paedia Mixon said, "Our staff has been involved with meeting planes at the airport and coordination of immediate services with the Red Cross, which provides up to five nights' lodging to accompaniers who cannot stay overnight with their loved ones in the hospital." RRISA is then arranging temporary housing and basic patient/family care, including family intakes and assessments, food and cash assistance, health screenings for family members, including access to physical and mental health services, and applications for public benefits programs.

RRISA is seeking funds to help pay temporary housing costs and basic necessities and to help cover costs for medical equipment and services not covered by Refugee Medicaid but desperately needed by recuperating patients, such as specialty bandages and home medical equipment for survivors of fractures and burns.

In addition, local community groups and churches, especially Haitian churches, are assembling hygiene and emergency clothing kits and serving as "family co-sponsors" to help with community orientation, make friendly visits and take hot meals to recuperating patients, and accompany family members for shopping and other outings.

"The Atlanta community is very engaged," said RRISA's Development Director Leanne Rubenstein. "We have schools and law firms getting involved, too. Everyone wants to help."

RRISA trained more than 50 volunteers in two orientation sessions, and partnered with Culture Connect to provide free interpreter training to bilingual and multilingual (English plus French and/or Haitian Creole) nurses, clergy and social workers.

"RRISA uses paid interpreters, and hospitals are required to use trained medical interpreters," Mixon said. "But in real life, these community members often end up serving as interpreters. So we hosted this training on professional ethics and standards of interpretation and covered issues of confidentiality and interpretation protocol."




[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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