Browsing by Author "Gateri, Hellen"
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Item Calculated kindness? The voices of women refugee claimants: accessing pre- and postnatal health care services in Toronto, Ontario(2024) Gateri, HellenIn Canada, refugee claimants are given temporary immigration status, making access to health care services challenging. While the federal government determines the entitlements granted to refugee claimants, provinces are responsible for delivering health care services. This qualitative study conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with eight refugee claimants and six service providers in Toronto, Ontario. An intersectional theoretical framework was employed to examine the experiences of women refugee claimants and their complicated and often incomplete access to prenatal and postnatal health care services. Findings revealed that delivery of health care services in Ontario created barriers to access and under-utilization of services resulting from intersections of health coverage, immigration status, gender, class, and discrimination.Item Employment barriers for racialized immigrants: a review of economic and social integration support and gaps in Edmonton, Alberta(2024) Intungane,Doriane; Long, Jennifer; Gateri, Hellen; Dhungel, RitaThis article explores the strategies used by government-sponsored institutions dedicated to addressing systemic barriers to employment for racialized immigrants in Edmonton. The research involved conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews with service providers, employment program coordinators from different settlement and employment agencies, and a research and training centre operating in Edmonton, Alberta. The first objective is to understand the barriers racialized immigrants face through the hiring and promotion process. The second objective is to understand the support provided by those institutions and the impact of their equity policies on how they assist racialized Canadians in finding gainful employment. Lastly, this study explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement on the employment of racialized immigrants in Edmonton. The results show that around 50% of employment service providers acknowledged that visible minority immigrants face barriers while integrating into the labour market, including racial microaggressions in their jobs. In addition, the findings indicate a lack of programs tailored to the needs of racialized job seekers. Participants in this study reported that the Black Lives Matter movement raised awareness among employers regarding racial issues in the workplace. Hence, there is a demonstrated need for employers to undergo training to recognize and address racism in hiring, promoting, and retaining racialized employees at Canadian workplaces. Interviewees recognized that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted racialized employees and newcomers. They recommended that Canadian companies establish educational programs that emphasize the importance and benefits of racial diversity, equity, and inclusion in the hiring process.Item Exploring barriers refugees and refugee claimants experience accessing reproductive health care services in Toronto(2017) Gateri, Hellen; Richards, DonnaStudies conducted in Canada and other countries with similar health care systems, such as Britain, Australia, and the Netherlands, demonstrate that refugees and refugee claimants experience barriers in accessing reproductive health care services, such as pre- and postnatal care and cervical cancer screening. These studies further indicate that the barriers that refugees and refugee claimants experience are largely due to racism and discrimination, culture, language, and/or communication. However, these studies rarely consider the broader political, economic, historical, and social contexts from which these women are attempting to access reproductive health care services. For example, they rarely consider the effects of neoliberal immigration policies and health care cut backs resulting from Canada’s adoption of a neoliberal ideology that supports minimal government intervention in the economy. Many of the studies reviewed emphasise cultural barriers, that is, the researchers assume that a woman’s culture is the most important determinant of their participation in reproductive health care services. When culture is viewed as the main problem attention is deflected from systemic racism and discrimination and other factors that impede access to reproductive health care services. These studies also fail to capture the unique gendered and racialised experiences of women refugees and refugee claimants and how these affect their access to reproductive health care services. To improve accessibility, most of these studies recommend culturally sensitive service delivery or increased awareness of racialised cultures among health professionals. Culturally sensitive or cross-cultural care, informed and shaped by neoliberal and multicultural policies, are popular approaches to addressing the needs of ethnic minority populations, or “multicultural others,” and managing ethnic or cultural diversity within the Canadian health care system. Guided by antiracist theories and postcolonial feminist theories, this paper argues that neoliberal ideology and multicultural discourse have effectively moved attention away from racism and other systemic barriers in Canadian society and attributed the problem of unequal access primarily to the cultures of women refugees and refugee claimants. In the multicultural paradigm, the structural and material differences or inequities among populations are reduced to the issue of ethnic and cultural diversity. The discourse of diversity overlooks power differences by explaining inequities in cultural terms that construct culture, along with ethnicity and community, as static and independent of social, historical, economic, and structural forces. As such new research is required to explore whether and to what extent women refugees and refugee claimants underutilise reproductive health care services, such as pre- and postnatal care and cervical cancer screening, taking into account not just culture but also the social, economic, political, and historical context from which the women are seeking health care services.Item Health inequities experienced by people with developmental disabilities(2022) Khanlou, N.; Khan, A.; Vazquez, L. M.; Nunes, F.; Felice, S.; Gateri, Hellen; Srivastava, R.; McMillan, S.; Francis Xavier, J. M.The overall purpose of our project is to develop guidelines and recommendations to guide nurses and other service providers as how to deliver effective quality nursing care for persons with DDs. In this Information Sheet, we report on the findings of a survey conducted with nine young adults with DDs, (with the assistance of their caregivers, as needed) to gather the views and perceptions of these youth about their nursing care experiences. A trained interviewer conducted the surveys via an online video platform (Zoom Pro). The participants were six females and three males, between the ages of 16 and 25 years. The DDs impacting these youth included Autism, ADD, cerebral palsy, cortical visual disabilities, global developmental delay, PDD-NOS along with a gene mutation, Fine-Lubinsky syndrome and Dravet syndrome.Item Social support for racialized families of children and youth with developmental disabilities: COVID-19 pandemic inequities(2023) Khanlou, Nazilla; Khan, Attia; Vasquez, Luz Maria; Pashang, Soheila; Gateri, Hellen; Ohiku, Titilayo; Hutchison, Nerissa; Alawiye, R.People with disabilities face increased risk for exposure, complications, and death from the recent COVID-19 public health emergency (Shapiro, 2020; Turk et al, 2020). The pandemic lockdown, with disruption of services and support (Chung, 2020) and accessibility barriers to prevention and response measures (Eshraghi et al., 2020), increased the challenges associated for people with developmental disabilities (DDs) (Ameis et al., 2020). Racialized people with disabilities (including DDs), further face systemic disadvantages across their social determinants of health (John et al., 2016); the interlocking barriers to care position them at a high risk of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research findings suggest that social support mitigates the effects of stressors for families to promote the wellbeing of children / youth with DDs leading to positive outcomes (Khanlou et al., 2022; Khanlou et al., 2015). Lack of data on the effects of the recent pandemic on people with DDs results in the inability of health surveillance systems to accurately determine the impact of the pandemic on marginalized populations and support needed (Turks et al., 2020). Increasing calls from racialized communities and disability advocates, scholars, and practitioners urge for the need to generate more data on the pandemic experiences of racialized people with DDs.