Immigrants from Mexico and Central America in search of asylum within the United States incessantly find yourself at border shelters in Tijuana, Mexico. They keep in them for weeks as they look forward to the U.S. authorities to approve or deny their functions.
Most of the refugees get sick throughout their journeys as a result of inadequate meals, an absence of unpolluted water and poor sanitation at camps and shelters alongside the best way. But maybe their largest well being drawback is melancholy and nervousness: They have suffered violence and been threatened by gangs and left behind every little thing they know on this planet.
Volunteer well being care staff from Southern California lately visited the Movimiento Juventud 2000 (Youth Movement 2000) shelter in Tijuana, and spent the day treating the migrants there. KHN’s Heidi de Marco captured the scene.
(Heidi de Marco/KHN)
Volunteer medical doctors, nurses and different well being care professionals board a bus in downtown Los Angeles earlier than daybreak to trip to the migrant shelter in Tijuana. They spent the day there shelling out free well being care, provides and recommendation to shelter inhabitants.
(Heidi de Marco/KHN)
For about 25 years, the shelter primarily housed Mexicans deported from the United States. Its director, Jose Maria Garcia Lara, proven right here, lately opened its doorways to asylum seekers and different migrants fleeing violence and financial deprivation in Central America. The largest well being drawback they face, Lara says, is melancholy: “The people who are coming here are leaving their homes. They are leaving a lifetime.”
(Heidi de Marco/KHN)
A mural contained in the shelter explains the rights of the migrants dwelling there. It says they’ve the correct to protected shelter; well being care and schooling; freedom from discrimination; due course of below the regulation; safety for his or her households; and respect for cultural variety.
(Heidi de Marco/KHN)
Jose Manuel Salinas, an asylum seeker on the shelter, holds his good friend’s child as he waits to be seen by a nurse. He was combating a cough that had worsened since his arrival a month earlier. Inhabitants of the camp don’t get common well being care. One physician and two nurses go to as soon as per week, however can spend solely 5 or 10 minutes with every migrant in want of care.
(Heidi de Marco/KHN)
Volunteer well being staff on the shelter arrange folding tables, the place they provided assist for each bodily and psychological illnesses. They supplied first support in addition to pediatric and dental care, they usually took glucose, blood stress and pulse readings.
(Heidi de Marco/KHN)
The shelter, which homes as much as 150 folks, has just one lavatory for males and one for ladies. Conditions are cramped, making the migrants vulnerable to sickness if they aren’t sick already.
(Heidi de Marco/KHN)
Jose Manuel Salinas resides quickly in a tent contained in the shelter. He says he walked and hitchhiked for a month from his residence in Acapulco. “You can’t live in the state of Guerrero,” says Salinas, 31. “There’s too much violence, and the truth is the salary we make isn’t enough to feed my family.”
