Brief Assignment 2
Daniel Cragan
Professor Phillips
ENG 170 22
20 October 2020
Thesis Proposal
Thesis:
COVID-19 has been a “double edged sword” for the refugee crisis by worsening the state of life refugees trudge through, while simultaneously helping not just refugees, but all people as new healthcare ideas are constantly being formed.
Main ideas:
- COVID-19 has created drastic changes to refugees and their lifestyles, and are affected so much as interactions with volunteers are fewer in a time where help is most needed.
- Increasing difficulty in helping refugees has hit the lives of volunteers as well, whose time and well being are pulled into question during the pandemic. Conditions in first world countries are worsening the conditions in the camps, due to their lack of aid.
- Medical needs are in great demand, as such, new ways of taking care of patients are being developed; ways that can more readily help all people including refugees.
Opposing viewpoints:
- Refugees should be helped after people native to the country that we live in are helped.
- COVID vaccines should be prioritized to those in first world countries, as those people can pay for the cost
Rebuttal:
- Both viewpoints are leaning towards the idea of protecting your people first. This goes along the lines of not helping refugees due to them stealing jobs, threatening peace, etc. All claims that have no research put into them, like this one, are used as an excuse or response to a self perceived threat.
- It is hard to have a moral high-ground when you condemn people to a state of life that puts them equal to the lowest class in society. People who risk their lives to create a better future for themselves and their family shouldn’t be an afterthought in the COVID-19 pandemic, and we should do all we can to help them find shelters and medical needs even in a harsh time for ourselves. All issues involving “sane” people can be solved using the phrase “treat others the way you want to be treated”. There is no logistics for moral equity which is why it is difficult to defend a point of view that opposes helping those in need.
Daniel Cragan
Professor Phillips
English 170 22
28 October 2020
My Notes For How The COVID-19 Pandemic Effects Refugees
Many refugees in Dadaab were already frustrated with the lack of progress in finding durable solutions. Now they are faced with the new COVID-19 situation, where the meagre humanitarian assistance they depend on has been further reduced amid donor concerns of widening funding gaps. The World Food Programme has been forced to cut food rations by 40 per cent and many other agencies have drastically reduced their presence, severely disrupting access to basic services (page 1).
“Kenya: COVID-19 Further Fuels Mental Health Crisis in Dadaab | MSF.” Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International, www.msf.org/kenya-covid-19-further-fuels-mental-health-crisis-dadaab. Accessed 27 Oct. 2020.
https://www.msf.org/kenya-covid-19-further-fuels-mental-health-crisis-dadaab
- The already struggling people of Kenya are facing one of their harshest trials yet.
- In this time of great need the countries that were helping to support them are needing to focus more on themselves.
- Relief and volunteers are few, and the medical needs both physically and mentally for the people are not being met.
- The World Food Program has cut food rations by nearly half, causing more families to go famished.
- Even the overall presence of help has seemingly left in the time of COVID-19, and Kenyans have no one to turn to.
Managers collectively viewed telehealth as helpful, easy and vital to the advancement of the practice sites they manage: “It is essential. We live in a world of technology, so necessary it will decrease time, effort, and cost.” CBR managers reported no foreseeable negative impacts to using this system in Jordanian CBR centers. All reported anticipated significant growth in utilization by CBR workers for various reasons including the perceived and experienced benefits, the feasibility of telehealth to support CBR workers in centers, and the acceptability of the intervention (page 7).
Mitchell-Gillespie, Bria, et al. “Sustainable Support Solutions for Community-Based Rehabilitation Workers in Refugee Camps: Piloting Telehealth Acceptability and Implementation.” Globalization & Health, vol. 16, no. 1, Sept. 2020, pp. 1–14. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/s12992-020-00614-y.
- Telehealth is created to allow doctors to help their patients from afar.
- They can do checkups- while not as effective- is still a means to see patients in a time where travel needs to be limited.
- In centers with internet and video services that have medical applications, doctors can use this to diagnose and treat patients quickly.
- This also allows for future improvements in overall medical care, and will hopefully evolve to be able to help people in the refugee crisis.
- With this technology, doctors from their home countries can diagnose issues while being safe from COVID exposure in the refugee camps, raising the level of care refugees receive.
- Implemented a Skype feature that can quickly translate other languages when spoken clearly.
A majority of the frontline workers dealing with the HIV and AIDS epidemic are from the healthcare or NGO industry. This includes doctors, nurses and anyone involved in direct care of the clients. Social workers, outreach workers and volunteers handle the pre-test procedures and post-diagnosis support such as peer counselling, group support, and social welfare. Depending on the country of service, frontline workers and volunteers who work directly with blood may require to undergo a series of medical tests to ensure that their HIV, TB and Hepatitis C status remains negative due to healthcare policies. However, this does not indicate that PLHIVs aren’t allowed to contribute their efforts within the community as there are other categories of the workforce that do not require direct blood contact such as outreach work for pre- and post-diagnosis assistance. Everyone who works with key populations affected by HIV/AIDS are well versed with the medical information related to this disease as well as the policies practiced by their country of service which have a direct impact on the clients (page 97).
Mooi, Chuah Siew, and Ann Nicole Nunis. “The Experience of Volunteers and Frontline Workers in Marginalized Communities Across Southeast Asia.” Multicultural Counseling Applications for Improved Mental Healthcare Services, edited by Anasuya Jegathevi Jegathesan and Siti Salina Abdullah, Medical Information Science Reference, 2019, pp. 93-111. Advances in Psychology, Mental Health, and Behavioral Studies. Gale eBooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7786400015/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=GVRL&xid=7c578d2c. Accessed 27 Oct. 2020.
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX7786400015/GVRL?u=newpaltz&sid=GVRL&xid=7c578d2c
- This care towards patients with HIV/AIDS, TB etc., can be applied to the care a COVID patient needs.
- Frontline workers face the brunt of the issues in the refugee crisis, and in the pandemic are becoming scarce.
- Those on the frontline are well versed in the signs and spread patterns of virus’.
- Social workers and other volunteers help gather paperwork for the people to be tested, showing some background work in the process.
“The inclusion of refugees in a host country, of course, means that they too – as hosts – must be supported by the international community, especially where returns of refugees are unsafe in protracted conflicts,” she added. Despite the many difficulties posed by the pandemic, aspects of the global response have offered evidence for optimism and revealed new tools and solutions in tackling future global challenges such as climate change. “COVID-19 has given us confidence in digital technologies. They have proved to be highly successful in promoting remote access to asylum systems and referral and counseling services,” Triggs said. “There will be no going back. At UNHCR we hope to develop these technologies, to scale them up and to provide wider coverage and more effective international protection” (page 1).
Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. “COVID-19 Crisis Underlines Need for Refugee Solidarity and Inclusion.” UNHCR, www.unhcr.org/news/latest/ 2020/10/5f7dfbc24/covid-19-crisis-underlines-need-refugee-solidarity-inclusion.html.
- The COVID crisis is not weighing down on the UN, rather, giving them hope.
- The application of technology is shown to be more effective now than ever before, and while this increases our reliance on it, it makes us more aware as to how we as a society choose to implement technology (relate to the Telehealth article).
- These tools are also able to help tackle other global challenges, once again speaking about the inclusion of refugees as a global people that need to be helped.
For Sub-Saharan African nationals, the Central Mediterranean route is a primary point of entry into Europe. Little data are available describing events in the Saharan desert. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) reports “only” 1691 confirmed deaths in the desert; however, it has been suggested that these numbers significantly underestimate the number of those killed with actual numbers at least three times higher. (page 1).
Tourneur, Isabel, et al. “Health and Asylum Seekers in Europe.” World Medical Journal, vol. 61, no. 3, Oct. 2015, pp. 89–97. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=110607852&site=ehost-live.
- The path of a refugee is already difficult enough, nonacceptance from society, the will of the natural world, and disease all make it worse.
- Constantly at risk, a refugee is never truly safe.
- Many die on boats to a “safer” place, and many still don’t even get a chance to see a way out.