City Council Calls for Quality Healthcare for Immigrants

The Council adopted a resolution calling for non-discriminatory and quality healthcare for immigrants and communities of color.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are widespread, resulting in significantly higher rates of heart failure, stroke hospitalization, and diabetes-related death in communities of color than their white counterparts.

The East Boston Neighborhood Health Clinic (EBNHC) is the largest community health center in Massachusetts and one of the largest in the nation. EBNHC provides healthcare services to many families and children in Boston’s immigrant communities.

In March of 2022, Centro Presente, a member-driven, state-wide Latin American immigrant organization dedicated to the self-determination and self-sufficiency of the Latino immigrant community of Massachusetts, raised concerns surrounding EBNHC’s quality of care for immigrants, particularly Spanish-speaking low-income immigrant women on MassHealth insurance.

The Council is urging all community health centers to commit to thoroughly examining and reforming treatment policies to guard against misdiagnosis and substandard care, and also to improve translation and interpretation services to ensure language is not a barrier to quality healthcare.