Access to Health Care: The Experiences of Refugee and Refugee Claimant Women in Hamilton, Ontario

Abstract

Using a social-determinants-of-health framework, this article explores the accessibility of health services from the viewpoints of service providers (n = 9) and refugee and refugee claimant women (n = 37) in Hamilton, Ontario. It also asks whether the experiences of refugee and refugee claimant women in navigating the health care system differ. Overall, opportunities for accessing health and social services were largely constrained by (or enabled by) their legal entitlements as Convention refugees or refugee claimants, rather than by their cultural or ethnic identities.

KEYWORDS:

• Canada
• refugees
• health
• access to care
• refugee claimant