Opportunities and tools when meeting migrant patients

This chapter describes opportunities for primary health care to improve health care access and services for migrants. It summarizes skills needed by primary care practitioners who work with migrants in communication, knowledge acquisition, and cultural sensitivity. The chapter outlines the roles of guidelines, protocols, and procedures and community engagement in delivering health care for migrants. Migrants choose to leave, perhaps for employment, marriage, or for family reunification. Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and some cancers are increasingly frequent among newly arrived refugees and other migrant populations. Migrants who are new to the settlement country and who have just begun to learn its dominant language are unlikely to fully grasp what they need to know, even if they can hold a basic conversation. The migrant health sector, like mainstream primary care, has a dearth of guidelines for comorbid illnesses, especially for comorbid chronic illness and psychological illness.