Fort Wayne freaking out!
Posted by Ann Corcoran on September 18, 2007
According to the Fort Wayne (IN) News-Sentinel today, the city and especially its Health Department are bracing for a wave of Burmese refugees. 200 are scheduled to arrive this fall and 800 are planned for 2008. Catholic Charities and Church World Services are the primary volags involved.
Catholic Charities cannot turn down refugees, and must accept however many the State Department says it is sending.
Oh really?
McMahan said about 50 percent of refugees arrive with TB infection and must be tested, treated and tracked. The TB clinic is already seeing a surge in patients this year, and they are sicker, she said, adding more nurses are needed now, even without the additional refugees.
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Refugees receive Medicaid benefits for eight months, which is why billing Medicaid will help the department meet the economic challenges. Providing immunizations to kids alone could be cost-prohibitive. For example, in six years, the cost to fully immunize a child by age 2 has risen from $240 to $1,100, McMahan said.
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This year so far, 58 percent of Allen County’s active TB cases are among foreign-born individuals, compared to 22 percent in 2004.
This is all very interesting news on the eve of the Refugee Resettlement forum scheduled for Hagerstown, MD. Church World Services and its subcontractor Virginia Council of Churches hope to convince us that Burmese refugees would bring lots of good things to our rural county when they meet with the community tomorrow night.
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Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) says communities overburdened with refugees, requests GAO investigation « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] according to the report. [We told you about this and the TB rate in Ft. Wayne as early as 2007, here, in 'Ft. Wayne freaking [...]
Michigan county to decide if they will do health screening for refugees « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] ask the Allen County Health Department located in Ft. Wayne, IN how much all this will cost in the end! Seriously, County [...]
Ft. Wayne, IN and Detroit, MI: refugee resettlement no-go cities « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] first learned about the problems the Ft. Wayne health department was having, here, in the fall of 2007. State Department representatives brushed that news off in a public [...]
Drug-resistant TB on the rise in immigrant communities « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] communities when we first read about Ft. Wayne, IN and its financially strapped health department here. Check out our health issues category for lots more on [...]
Some Ft. Morgan residents uneasy about Somalis flocking to town « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] are over 5000 refugees in Ft. Wayne, IN because that city never said NO! We first heard about Ft. Wayne last September because the health department couldn’t handle the large numbers of refugees [...]
“System breakdown” in Fort Wayne, IN: too many refugees « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] program, so who didn’t see this coming? We started reporting to you last September (Ft. Wayne freaking out) that Ft. Wayne was completely overloaded with refugees. But, apparently some officials like the [...]
Refugee children arrive with health problems: follow up spotty « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] attention was first drawn to this issue in reports from Ft. Wayne, IN last September where its health department was stretched to the max by the [...]
Gringo_Malo said
Meant to say taxpayers’ money. No way to edit a post once submitted.
Gringo_Malo said
Didn’t we once inspect prospective immigrants, who came at their own expense, and refuse admission to those who were not healthy? Now, it seems, we use taxpayers to bring in refugees carrying diseases that had been eradicated in America. Has everyone in Washington gone bonkers?