Columbus Dispatch Examines Efforts To Provide Care to Increasing Immigrant Population

The Columbus Dispatch on April 8 reports on the barriers to medical care faced by the influx of immigrants who are settling in the Columbus, Ohio, area. Immigrants in the area have difficulties with language and cultural differences and those without health insurance face a "greater struggle" accessing care. To help provide affordable care to the immigrant population, Columbus immigrant organizations and health centers have formed a partnership called Access-Health Columbus, which in part places interpreters in neighborhood clinics. The program also is designed to steer immigrants away from using emergency rooms for nonemergency services and toward receiving such services in primary care settings. Some advocates, doctors and hospitals have said that even more programs and funding are needed to meet the "special needs" of the immigrant population, as the current "patchwork" system of hospitals and charity organizations soon will reach a "breaking point," the Dispatch reports (Crane, Columbus Dispatch, 4/8).