"I'd like to share a statistic with you" Is frequently the introduction to many of the outreach team's presentations. "Immigrants arrive in the United States with the best health in the nation, but in just 5 years, they come to have the poorest health in the nation. How could that be?"
I sat down with a patient today to talk about participating in our upcoming diabetes group classes entitled Tomando Control de su Diabetes, or Taking Control of your Diabetes. During our conversation, It became clear that diabetes was the least of her struggles. She was nervous of finding the location - which is two blocks from our clinic. She told me about a time when she had an appoinment in a new clinic and would wander the same city blocks over and over looking for the building, scared to stop. Nervous and frustrated, she eventually took a turn off the main road and hunched down in the ally way and sobbed. She would hear people approach and be overcome with fear that they would harm her. All she could do was pray. Pray and cry. Eventually she calmed her self and just went home. But now she only goes to the places she already knows, using bus routs she is familiar with, and will spend hours in our clinic trying to get all of her needs so she doesn't need to go elsewhere. To try and make it to the Diabetes group visits was too much to handle.
The anxiety and fear of living in a new and foreign place is overwhelming. Leaving her home out of financial necessity to live in a place that has no feeling of home or community has allowed terror to permeated her life. It has worsened her physical an mental health and stunted her social interactions. Its no wonder that immigrants, who may have come to the US happy and healthy, are stripped of their health within only a few years.
I sat down with a patient today to talk about participating in our upcoming diabetes group classes entitled Tomando Control de su Diabetes, or Taking Control of your Diabetes. During our conversation, It became clear that diabetes was the least of her struggles. She was nervous of finding the location - which is two blocks from our clinic. She told me about a time when she had an appoinment in a new clinic and would wander the same city blocks over and over looking for the building, scared to stop. Nervous and frustrated, she eventually took a turn off the main road and hunched down in the ally way and sobbed. She would hear people approach and be overcome with fear that they would harm her. All she could do was pray. Pray and cry. Eventually she calmed her self and just went home. But now she only goes to the places she already knows, using bus routs she is familiar with, and will spend hours in our clinic trying to get all of her needs so she doesn't need to go elsewhere. To try and make it to the Diabetes group visits was too much to handle.
The anxiety and fear of living in a new and foreign place is overwhelming. Leaving her home out of financial necessity to live in a place that has no feeling of home or community has allowed terror to permeated her life. It has worsened her physical an mental health and stunted her social interactions. Its no wonder that immigrants, who may have come to the US happy and healthy, are stripped of their health within only a few years.
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