Exploring Barriers Refugees and Refugee Claimants Experienced Accessing Reproductive Health Care Services in Toronto

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorMule, Nick J.
dc.creatorGateri, Helen Waigumo
dc.date.accessioned2019-03-05T14:40:17Z
dc.date.available2019-03-05T14:40:17Z
dc.date.copyright2018-08-24
dc.date.issued2019-03-05
dc.date.updated2019-03-05T14:40:17Z
dc.degree.disciplineSocial Work
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractA qualitative feminist study was conducted to explore the access barriers to three reproductive health care services: prenatal care, postnatal care, and screening for cervical cancer, experienced by women refugee claimants in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The study was informed by social constructionist epistemology and antiracist and intersectional perspectives, and focused on the social, political, economic, and historical contexts of the participants lives and their experiences with migration and the Canadian health care system. Sixteen women refugee claimants and 6 service providers were interviewed individually. The study explored how the systems, structures, and policies of Canadian society shaped refugee claimants womens use of these services, or lack thereof, and shaped their everyday life experiences. The research findings indicated that the study participants immigration status, lack of health coverage, living arrangements, absence of service provider support, degree of health care knowledge, discrimination, and having suffered pain, discomfort, or trauma in the past impacted their use or lack of use of prenatal care, postnatal care, and cancer screening services. An intersectional analysis revealed that the gendered and racialized immigration and integration policies, and neoliberal ideologies and practices intersected to locate the participants in racialized and disadvantaged situations as the other wherein access to these services became challenging. Women refugee claimants access to these and other reproductive healthcare services needs to be understood beyond the attempts to know their cultural health beliefs and practices, and beyond the neoliberal ideas of self-care, individual responsibility, and culturally sensitive care. Equitable access to healthcare cannot be ensured without resisting these womens racialized position as the other while addressing the social, political, historical, and structural inequities in Canadian society. To ensure barrier-free, full health care coverage to women refugee claimants, as well as other refugee claimants and immigrants, social inequities need to be addressed coupled with instituting broader structural changes federally and provincially in policies, funding, procedures, and practices.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/35786
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectSocial work
dc.subject.keywordsrefugee claimants women
dc.subject.keywordsprenatal and postnatal care access barriers
dc.subject.keywordscervical cancer screening barriers
dc.subject.keywordshealth care access barriers
dc.titleExploring Barriers Refugees and Refugee Claimants Experienced Accessing Reproductive Health Care Services in Toronto
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Gateri_Helen_2018_PhD.pdf
Size:
6.86 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.87 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
YorkU_ETDlicense.txt
Size:
3.39 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

Social Work

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.