Here's an interesting story about refugees who receive medical services, but not mental health services, even though most of them have experienced trauma in their countries of origin. The story points out that over the next five years, 50,000 Congolese, all who have lived through a horrendous civil war, will be resettling in the U.S.
For the first eight months refugees in the United States receive federally subsidized medical assistance that covers their medical needs. When Elomba arrived, he was fitted for a prosthetic arm. But he said he was never offered mental health care, even though in retrospect, he might have benefited from it.
"It was very difficult, because you don’t go to sleep, because you keep dreaming about all the things and you feel like someone’s going to come to get you," Elomba said. "You have all those bad dreams. You keep dreaming the same thing over and over."
Eventually, Elomba ended up working as a caseworker for several years with Catholic Charities, the same group that resettled him. He would often try to direct new refugees toward the proper channels, especially people that were coming from war-torn areas. But because he lacked knowledge of the mental health system, and wasn’t sure what providers offered the necessary language skills he would often just refer people to primary care providers.
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