african immigrants

Patient advocate Bright Ansah shares some issues he encountered while seeking treatment after his diagnosis with HBV, including limited follow-up on lab results and a lack of compassion from his healthcare providers, and rushed health appointments.

Bright’s story opens up a conversation about broader concerns about HBV treatment and retention in care with Janet Afoakwah and William Amiteye, fellow patient advocates on the panel, and Patricia D. Jones, MD, MSCR, who offers a healthcare provider’s perspective. They also discuss practical solutions to those barriers, including ways to establish trust with the patient, emphasizing active listening and compassionate care during appointments, and collaborating with patients on their options and next steps.

Link to full program:
http://bit.ly/3Gf7NWo

Listen as patient advocate William Amiteye uses his own experience as a Tanzanian immigrant to discuss important barriers to effective HBV screening and diagnosis, including limited knowledge about HBV from his healthcare providers, a lack of compassion toward his diagnosis from those same providers, and a limited awareness of HBV from patients in general.

His story opens up an interesting and important discussion with another patient advocate on the panel, Janet Afoakwah, and Patricia D. Jones, MD, MSCR, who provides a provider’s perspective on the topic.

Link to full program:
http://bit.ly/3Gf7NWo

In this episode we discuss the research of Dr. Bukola (Oladunni) Salami,  Sigma International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame inductee (July 2020) and associate professor at the University of Alberta. 

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In this special interview, we speak over the phone with two Black immigrants who are detained in Atlanta City Detention Center, as well as Kevin Caron, a local Atlanta organizer and abolitionist that does tremendous work with immigrant communities. Throughout the interview you will notice difficulties with telephone connection and communication; we decided not to edit these things out, and instead to leave these various difficulties in the audio as to expose the listeners to the vast difficulties that often come with trying to communicate with incarcerated people.

Mohammed, who is from Ghana, discusses his journey of coming to the US, the difficulties he has faced being a Black, Muslim immigrant in jail, the impact incarceration has on mental health, and the impossible challenges he has faced in trying to navigate the US immigration system.

The Richard, from Jamaica, discusses the inhumane conditions they face within the jails/detention centers, the legal battles that he has endured, and how these issues of immigration specifically impact African and Caribbean immigrants.

Finally we end with an interview with Kevin Caron, a local Atlanta organizer and abolitionist who does tremendous work with detained immigrants and throughout many immigrant communities. Kevin works with both Georgia Detention Watch and A World Without Police.

[DISCLAIMER: This interview was recorded in the beginning of May, and a few weeks after this interview was recorded we got word that Mohammed was freed in June and has safely returned to his home in Ghana.]

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