Building Health Equity: MCN’s Impact in 2021

/ 21 April 2022 / 0 Comments

MCN's 2021 Impact Report

This week, Migrant Clinicians Network released its 2021 Impact Report, highlighting several key programs and initiatives, in which MCN pushed for health justice in 2021. The report outlines MCN’s remarkable efforts to support migrant, immigrant, asylum-seeking, and other underserved communities and the clinicians who work diligently to care for them. Outlined in the Impact Report are efforts around COVID-19; the climate crisis and environmental justice; training and technical support to clinicians; mobile patient navigation via Health Network; worker health and safety; Latinx health outreach through the Ventanillas de Salud; clinician support through Witness to Witness; press and media outreach; and MCN fundraising efforts.

“Through the tireless efforts of my MCN colleagues and our partners, in 2021, we have made tremendous progress to reduce the barriers to care and support migrants, immigrants, and asylum seekers and the clinicians who care for them,” said Karen Mountain, MBA, MSN, RN, Chief Medical Officer of MCN. “Amid structural racism and health inequities, pressurized by the ongoing pandemic, we remain clearly focused on our mission to provide practical solutions at the intersection of vulnerability, migration, and health, as we strive to be more forceful in our quest for health justice.”

(An excerpt from the COVID-19 section of MCN's 2021 Impact Report)

The five-page Impact Report quantifies the acceleration of MCN’s work in the last year. For example, 263 COVID-19 resources were developed in 2021, to meet the growing need during the pandemic. Health Network, MCN’s virtual case management program helps any migrant with any health concern moving anywhere in the world, to find care at their next location. In 2020, Health Network served 887 patients; in 2021, that number skyrocketed to 2,205, driven by an increase of work at the US-Mexico border, where Health Network Associates help pregnant asylum seekers find prenatal care after their release from detention. MCN’s partnerships with the Ventanilla de Salud (VdS) proved incredible this year, with almost 32,000 COVID-19 vaccines administered across the three VdS locations for which MCN is a fiscal sponsor. The report also gives written updates on MCN’s critical work in community mobilization during emergencies, which has stepped up its efforts in the face of a rapidly changing climate, and the much-needed efforts of Witness to Witness, which supports health care and service providers who have been overwhelmed during the COVID-19 pandemic while still needing to serve the most underserved as providers.

The Impact Report also highlights MCN’s Platinum status from GuideStar, and the designation as a 2021 Top-Rated NonProfit from Great Nonprofits, both of which affirm MCN’s good governance and effectiveness as an organization among its constituents.