Frances Barrick, Record staff
Tue Apr 02 2013 16:19:00
Health clinic for refugees to open Thursday in Kitchener

KITCHENER – A health clinic dedicated to the ongoing care of refugees will open Thursday in Kitchener.

It is the first such clinic in Waterloo Region.

“I think it is a service that needs to exist….I think here is a huge need,” said Dr. Michael Stephenson, 34, who is the director and sole physician of this new clinic called Sanctuary Refugee Health Centre.

The clinic will operate on Thursdays at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 825 King St. W. until Stephenson said he finds a more permanent location.

There are many ethnic groups in Bhutan, and no one group constitutes a majority of the Bhutanese population.In the 1990s, Bhutan expelled or forced to leave nearly one-fifth of its population in the name of preserving its Tibetan Mahayana Buddhist culture and identity, claiming that those expelled were illegal residents. The decision was motivated by the concern that the fast growing Nepali minority would take over the country, recalling similar events that caused the collapse of the nearby kingdom of Sikkim in 1975. (Wiki)

News Release — Canada to Welcome 1,000 Additional Bhutanese Refugees
Providing Protection to the World’s Most Vulnerable

Ottawa, March 27, 2013 — Canada will welcome up to 1,000 additional Bhutanese refugees from Nepal, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced today.

“Canada has a longstanding tradition of assisting refugees and welcomes one in 10 refugees resettled globally, more than almost any other country in the world,” said Minister Kenney. “We recognize the importance of family reunification in this process, and resettling refugees who already have family in Canada will help them adjust much faster and more easily.”

Morales is suing Alberta Health Services, Calgary Laboratory Services and the pathologist for missing her cancer when it was in its early stages.

Cancer, denied refugee claim sour Mexican woman’s Canadian dream
Couple from Mexico coping with misdiagnosis and cuts to refugee health care
CBC News Posted: Mar 19, 2013 1:51 PM MT Last Updated: Mar 19, 2013 9:06 PM MT
A Mexican couple’s dream of starting over in Canada is unravelling amid a misdiagnosed cancer, a lawsuit and rejected refugee claims from Ottawa.

Maria Morales and Ivan Nava came from Tierra Colorada in Guerrero state in southwestern Mexico, a region controlled by drug cartels and corrupt police.
‘I couldn’t believe it. When they gave us the news, I felt so sad.’
— Maria Morales
Morales’s former partner, an architect and father to her now grown son, was killed for reasons that were never clear to her, she says.

Failed refugee with terminal cancer faces deportation
Shawn Pompey receives free care and medications from his oncologist and drug companies, not taxpayers. He has months to live, but CBSA wants to deport him now.

NICHOLAS KEUNG / TORONTO STAR

Shawn Pompey knows his liver cancer is terminal, but he wants to stay in Canada, where an oncologist is providing palliative care for free.
By: Nicholas Keung Immigration reporter, Published on Fri Feb 15 2013

Despite his terminal cancer, Shawn Pompey refused handouts and continued to work at a Toronto window factory until January, when he was slated to be deported to St. Vincent.

Pompey, 42, a failed refugee, has been without health care coverage since June, when Ottawa’s new refugee health cuts kicked in, prohibiting unsuccessful asylum seekers awaiting deportation from accessing care.

Fortunately, his oncologist at Brampton Civic Hospital, Dr. Philip Kuruvilla, has continued to treat him for free and managed to get him free medications for his liver cancer through various pharmaceutical companies’ compassionate drug access programs.

Patricia Erb/Photo credit: Bruna Sofia Simoes/Save the Children

Canada gives $25M for Syrian crisis as refugees continue to flee
Humanitarian groups say devastation will require ongoing financial efforts
Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press
Published: Thursday, January 31, 2013

Almost every day for the last two months, the lanky, wide-eyed Syrian boy asks his teacher when his parents will come to join him in northern Lebanon.

The boy fled Syria’s civil war – now in its 22nd month – with his aunt. What he doesn’t know is that his parents are among the estimated 60,000 people that the United Nations estimates have been killed in the war.

“Nobody knows when the aunt will tell him,” recalled a weary Patricia Erb, over the telephone late Wednesday night from Beirut.

5,000 mostly Iranian and Iraqi refugees to resettle in Canada

canadianimmigrant.ca
January 16, 2013

Minister Jason Kenney and Parliamentary Secretary Bob Dechert at a refugee camp in Turkey on Jan. 14, 2013.

Canada will resettle up to 5,000 refugees currently in Turkey by 2018, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced during his current visit to Turkey.