Refugee Health YYC

Refugee Health Policy Workshop

Canada historically excels in refugee healthcare delivery, yet increasingly faces major capacity challenges, given increased arrivals of refugees, asylum claimants, and Ukrainian evacuees (collectively "refugees"), with an estimated 375,000 arrivals in 2022 alone. Refugees often require short-term specialized healthcare post-arrival. However, Canada's refugee health system structures, processes, and programs very widely, and its estimated current capacity only meets 2.5%-5% of recent demand. These challenges require novel solutions.

On July 18-19, 2023, the University of Calgary's Refugee Health YYC, O'Brien Institute for Public Health, and School of Public Policy co-hosted a Refugee Health Policy (RHP) workshop in collaboration with the Society of North American Refugee Health Providers and the Canadian Refugee Health Network. The workshop was funded by its primary knowledge user, the federal Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the University of Calgary and the Cumming School of Medicine.

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Refugee resettlement in North America has been punctuated with emergency humanitarian programs that rapidly resettle large refugee populations that strain existing health and resettlement sector resources and workforces. For example, Canada is currently experiencing the largest single-year resettlement of refugees, evacuees, and asylum claimants that require specialized healthcare services. Increased human displacement and resettlement is occurring while healthcare systems are depleted and strained after three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We must learn from recent emergency resettlement initiatives, share best practices across jurisdictions and create accessible tools to better prepare resilient health and resettlement systems that can adapt to these influxes. 

This two-day workshop aimed to:

This workshop was supported by: