Care Bridges: Breaking Barriers to Healthcare for Refugee Claimants

Munazzah Jaffer, Alba Sanchez-Allakhverdieva, Sofia Lizza, M.A., Sofie Bou Assi, BSc., Randy Ngalamulume Mukengeshayi, BSc., Sahar Hajzargarbashi, and Meriem Hamel

Imagine fleeing your home country, arriving in a new city, and not knowing where to turn for your next medical appointment: this is the reality for thousands of refugee claimants in Canada today. 

At the end of 2024, 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide, fleeing war, violence, persecution, and other human rights violations, according to Global Trends Report 2024 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  Canada is among the world’s largest recipients of new applications from persons seeking asylum, referred to as refugee claimants in Canada. According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) processed 58,925 refugee claims across all ports of entry and inland offices in 2024, with Quebec and Ontario processing the largest number of claims.  

With an increasing population of newcomers, many with physical and mental health conditions prior to, or as a result of, their long journey to Canada, providing access to equitable healthcare is, indeed, what we believe to be a fundamental human right.  

Care Bridges’ Mission 

At McGill University, the Care Bridges association, founded in 2019, is composed of medical students who raise awareness about and address the challenges faced by refugee claimants in the Quebec healthcare system. The current presidents of the association are two 4th-year medical students, Alba Sanchez-Allakhverdieva and Munazzah Jaffer. Other group members include 4th-year medical student, Randy Ngalamulume Mukengeshayi; third-year medical students, Meriem Lyna Hamel, Sahar Hajzargarbashi, and Sofia Lizza; and second-year medical student, Sofie Bou Assi. 

After working as a Local Community Service Centre (CLSC) receptionist, Munazzah gained a deeper understanding of healthcare services and quickly realized that the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for all to access and navigate primary care. Therefore, Alba and Munazzah designed the “Healthcare Navigation Workshop”, which is offered on a monthly basis in three languages, French, English, and Spanish, at temporary shelters affiliated with PRAIDA, and now at the Refugee Centre as well. This workshop empowers refugee claimants to access relevant health and social services by increasing their awareness of main access points, such as the Info-Sante 811 line or their local CLSC. 

“Perhaps the biggest hurdle that refugee claimants face in accessing healthcare in Quebec is finding a provider who accepts Medavie Blue Cross, particularly mental health providers,” says Sofia Lizza. “From speaking to participating providers, those at PRAIDA, and learning about the work of the Centre d’expertise sur le bien-être et l’état de santé physique des réfugiés et des demandeurs d’asile (CERDA), there are unfortunately myths surrounding delay in reimbursement and administrative challenges that deter those from signing up as a participating provider. I hope that through the work Care Bridges does and our community partnerships, we can inspire our generation of colleagues and our training supervisors to sign up as providers.”  

McGill Global Health Night Poster Presentation, November 2025.

From left to right: Meriem Hamel, Sofie Bou Assi, Sofia Lizza, and Munazzah Jaffer

Refugee and Migrant Health Panel

On June 17th, 2025, the Care Bridges association hosted the first edition of the Refugee and Migrant Health panel since the COVID-19 pandemic. The event featured 4 guest speakers: Dr. Gilles de Margerie (family physician, Clinique des Demandeurs d’Asile et des Réfugiés (CDAR, Montreal), Dr. Juan Carlos L. Chirgwin (family physician, CLSC Park-Extension, Montreal), Dr. Jaswant Guzder (child psychiatrist, British Columbia), and Alejandro Rodriguez (first-year medical student at the University of Montreal). 

Despite a strike from the local public transport system that forced the panel to be held virtually at the last minute, participants from several health profession backgrounds attended virtually and actively engaged in discussions related to refugee and migrant health, tailored to the speaker’s respective areas of practice. Dr. De Margerie opened the panel by discussing the importance of medical literacy, cultural competency, and the need for solid interpretation of resources. Dr. Guzder entertained conversations surrounding the lack of cultural axis in medical training as well as stigma related to mental health in racialized populations. Dr. Chirgwin concluded with reflections on the value of time and continuity of care through longstanding community resources. 

The panel concluded with a moving testimony from Alejandro, a first-year medical student and a former refugee claimant who arrived from Colombia during his early adolescence. His story gave attendees a firsthand perspective of lived challenges faced during the asylum process, including exposure to migratory scams, adapting to a new education system, learning a new language, and navigating adolescence with little to no support. 

Future Perspectives 

Accessibility to healthcare remains a challenge for many newcomers, mainly due to language barriers and the complexities of the Quebec healthcare system. To improve accessibility, Care Bridges continues to collaborate with community stakeholders and physicians. Health navigation is a crucial skill that medical students and allied healthcare profession students will develop in their early training, allowing them to play a key role in offering health navigation services to newcomers. Care Bridges will continue to carry out these initiatives at McGill University and further develop workshop participation to include volunteers from other medical faculties across Quebec, such as through our current partnership with  INCommunity, a clinical and community engagement internship organized through IFMSA-Quebec, in which medical students had the opportunity to facilitate the CareBridges healthcare navigation workshop at PRAIDA this summer. 

Sofie Bou Assi with INCommunity intern, Tania Bejera Bente, delivering the healthcare navigation workshop at PRAIDA, August 2025.

We are also exploring collaboration with other universities in Canada and in the United States. Recently, we had the opportunity to present our work at the Asylum Medicine Summit hosted by the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights in New York. Learning about the differences between healthcare realities across the border, and the various ways medical students can be directly involved in the care of refugees and persons seeking asylum, were both important learning points from this conference, which we hope to bring back to Montreal. Through our current and future initiatives, we hope to inspire change in the expansion of health services for newcomers by facilitating their integration at the provincial, national, and international level. 

Looking ahead, we hope that one day medical students will have the opportunity to complete clerkship rotations in clinics and settings specifically focused on refugee health. These rotations would provide students with direct clinical experience working with newcomers, learning to navigate complex social and cultural factors while addressing the unique physical and mental health challenges faced by this population. Such experiences would cultivate culturally competent, compassionate physicians who are equipped to advocate for equitable care and bring systemic improvements to healthcare delivery for newcomers.

Poster Presentation at the Asylum Medicine Summit at Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights Immigration, October 2025. 

From left to right: Sofie Bou Assi, Munazzah Jaffer, and Alba Sanchez-Allakhverdieva