Health Care
YLP members protesting outside the Montefiore Family Health Clinic, May 1998.
Ensuring access to translation services
In April 1998, administrators at the Montefiore Family Health Center in the Bronx eliminated Vietnamese and Khmer translation services. According to the Voice, approximately 10,000 Vietnamese and Cambodian patients visited the clinic in 1996-97 alone. Thus, this decision effectively denied Southeast Asian community equal access to health care.
Soon after the service cuts were announced, the YLP organized a rally outside the Montefiore clinic. Over 200 Vietnamese and Cambodian patients and other community members participated in the protest.
In the following months, YLP helped organize adults in the community to form a Southeast Asian Community Council. Together, this council and the YLP developed strategies for their campaign to restore translation services and monitor the clinic for evidence of neglect and discrimination toward Southeast Asians.
YLP members and community members arrive at the Office for Civil Rights to stage a sit-in, August 1998.
YLP and SEACC members at a meeting at the Office of Civil Rights, August 3, 1998.
In August 1998, YLP and Southeast Asian community members marched into the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to protest a meeting that it was having with Montefiore administrators without community members present. The protestors succeeded in getting a meeting with OCR director Michael Carter, who promised to discuss the OCR's findings and recommendations with the community. However, it is unclear whether Carter followed through on this promise.
Later that month, YLP held a sit-in at the Montefiore clinic for four hours, this time demanding a meeting with the president to advocate for the Southeast Asian community's right to translation services and equal access to health care.
In fall 1999, YLP succeeded in pressuring Montefiore’s administration to restore one of the Khmer translator positions. Reporting on the YLP's victory, the Voice wrote the following:
"Through this campaign, a number of YLP's youth organizers gained the experience of struggling through a long and difficult campaign and navigating a complex range of targets and allies which included the Office for Civil Rights, the 1199 Health and Hospital Worker's Union, and the central administration of Montefiore Hospital -- one of the largest private health corporations in the country. The lessons gained from this struggle have given the youth organizers the tools and experience to engage in new areas of organizing."
Health impacts of war and displacement
Community rally at the Montefiore Family Health Center, May 1998.
Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees suffered extreme violence, torture, malnutrition, starvation, and loss of loved ones during the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge, respectively. Vietnamese refugees and their children especially suffer from the use of Agent Orange by U.S. troops. Having experienced the trauma of war, genocide, and forced displacement, the Vietnamese and Cambodian communities in the Bronx (and across the U.S.) are left to deal with the resulting physical, mental, and emotional damage.
Furthermore, with so many refugees employed in low-paying jobs and workfare assignments, health insurance is often unavailable. As the YLP's campaign against the Montefiore clinic illustrates, even when Southeast Asian refugees can access a health care facility, service providers and administrators often do not offer translation services or cultural competency.
To address these far-ranging health challenges, the YLP collaborated with the NYU Vietnamese Community Health Initative and NYU School of Medicine’s Institute of Community Health and Research to conduct a needs assessment survey of the Fordham community. In September 2007, they published a report titled “Community Health Needs & Resource Assessment,” which confirmed war and displacement as root causes for a wide range of health issues, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and chronic pain. Furthermore, Fordham residents reported being unsatisfied with the quality of health care in their neighborhood, citing lack of translation services and medical staff's ambivalence toward their past traumas.
With this report in hand, YLP demanded that the Montefiore Family Health Center build a comprehensive health care program for survivors of war, to which the Montefiore administration agreed in May 2008.