| PRESS RELEASE |
9/29/2004
(212) 627-2227, ext. 222
(917) 923-4172 cell
Immigrant New Yorkers Demand Improvements in Health Care Services
| New York City, September 29, 2004. At a press conference following a hearing by the New York City Council’s Health and Immigration Committees, immigrants and community leaders described widespread barriers to health care faced by immigrants, and called on the Council to take action. Representatives of Latino, Asian, and Caribbean immigrant organizations detailed how New York City’s three million immigrant residents face significant obstacles to health care, including communication barriers at hospitals and Medicaid offices, lack of insurance and fear of medical debt, and fear of potential immigration consequences from using health care and insurance.
Leaders called on the City to launch public service campaigns to reassure immigrants about their rights to health care. They also urged the Council to take action aimed at private hospitals, which have created unfair barriers to the uninsured – especially immigrants – through dangerous communication barriers, and by failing to notify patients about reduced-cost care and insurance. Groups asked the Council to provide funding for new outreach and education efforts to help immigrants understand their rights, overcome fears, and learn how to access health care. Immigrant organizations proposed specific reforms. “We are calling on New York City to put new money in the budget so that our public hospitals can hire interpreters and expand their innovative communication systems,” said Nora Chaves, who manages the health access programs at the Latin American Integration Center, a community-based social service and civil rights organization with offices in Queens and Staten Island. “The City Council should look into ways that the City can mandate that private hospitals shoulder their fair share of the burden for providing health care to uninsured New Yorkers, who find it impossible to get care at many private hospitals,” said Chaves. “New York City is home to some of the best medical care in the world, it’s just a shame that private hospitals keep their payment options and free care a secret from low-income immigrants,” added Chaves. “New York should start to hold hospitals accountable for the hundreds of millions of dollars they receive each year to provide care to uninsured New Yorkers, because the system has completely broken-down.” Seongho Kim, program director at Korean Community Services, a social service agency that operates in Queens and citywide, said, “Reckless billing practices at New York’s private hospitals are bankrupting low-income people and deterring patients from seeking follow-up care. In many cases the hospitals are neglecting to bill “emergency Medicaid,” which is a legitimate source of payment, and instead are aggressively billing low-income undocumented patients.” Kim added, “The irony is that hospitals are crying poverty, while at the same time ignoring perfectly good funding – why aren’t they paying attention?” Maria Santos, a member of Make the Road By Walking, a grassroots organization serving the Latino community in Bushwick, Brooklyn, described feeling confused, humiliated, and discriminated against when a hospital treated English-speaking patients but would not help her because the hospital was not prepared to communicate in Spanish. Ms. Santos said, “Many immigrants face serious problems as a result of the lack of interpretation and translation services in the hospitals. Now, we are very afraid that these communication problems will not just cause health problems, but also problems with immigration because President Bush wants to convert emergency rooms into places to enforce immigration law. This is a huge mistake and it could cause immigrants to not seek or receive needed medical care out of fear.” The proposed new Bush Administration policy, which is expected to be finalized this week, could make the health care obstacles facing immigrants more extreme. The Administration proposes to require hospitals that want limited new funding through Section 1011 of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 to ask emergency room patients sensitive immigration questions, or questions about Social Security Numbers and driver’s licenses, which would create fear and cause immigrants to avoid getting preventive and emergency health care for themselves and their citizen children. “The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should abandon its agenda of trying to get hospitals involved in immigration affairs. If the Bush Administration goes forward with this proposed rule, it will be a tragedy for New York’s immigrant communities, and for the entire City, because we all pay the price when coworkers and classmates are afraid to get medical care,” said Adam Gurvitch, Director of Health Advocacy of The New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella organization for about 150 immigrant and refugee groups in New York. “It is amazing that the Bush Administration is courting immigrant voters, but at the same time is ignoring health providers and immigrants who are saying this policy will be a disaster. The fact is that Congress recently voted against exactly this sort of anti-immigrant and anti-public health proposal,” added Gurvitch. Ericka Mosheshe, Executive Director for the American Cancer Society's Upper Manhattan office, said, "No one should have to choose between the fear of dying and the fear of being deported. We are very concerned that this will discourage immigrants from seeking care for life-threatening illnesses and accidents, and treatments for diseases such as cancer. The proposed rule will lead to sicker individuals, delayed care and increased mortality." New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) has reassured immigrants that the City’s public hospitals will not ask sensitive immigration-related questions, even if it means having to forego the new Medicare funding. Under the leadership of Christine Quinn, Chair of the City Council Health Committee, the Committee brought forward two resolutions to protect immigrants’ access to health care. The first resolution indicates the Council’s support for proposed State legislation that would set basic standards for hospitals to communicate with patients. The second resolution opposes the proposed federal policy to require hospitals to ask patients for sensitive immigration-related information. The immigrant health hearing was co-convened by Kendall Stewart, Chair of the Council’s Immigration Committee. |
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