Chinar Sedeqi, the only Pashto-speaking community health worker actively practicing and doing home visits to refugee families in San Antonio, resigned from his position at the Center for Refugee Services on Sept. 11. Sedeqi was called to a local hospital to help an emotionally distraught mother who had just undergone major surgery because he knows how to speak Pashto and the patient and her family could not understand what the doctors were saying.
Chinar Sedeqi, the only Pashto -speaking community health worker actively practicing and doing home visits to refugee families in San Antonio , resigned from his position at the Center for Refugee Services on Sept. 11.Chinar Sedeqi was called to a local hospital to help an emotionally distraught mother who had just undergone major surgery.
Sedeqi translated the doctors’ explanation that the baby was in breech position, meaning there was a risk the baby would be born bottom first, threatening both the mother’s and the baby’s lives, unless they did an emergency cesarean.Never miss San Antonio Report's biggest stories.EmailHe walked away from the hospital that day knowing that the mother would likely need mental health support to process what had happened.
Pashto is natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan, where many have fled for their safety. Currently, 13 interpreters who speak Pashto and Dari, another language spoken in Afghanistan, work to support local medical teams at the San Antonio Refugee Health Clinic. This walk-in clinic operates once a week in partnership with the nonprofit refugee center and UT Health San Antonio’s Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics.
“The best way for them to truly be integrated and be able to become prosperous, contributing members of our community, is to ensure their mental health needs are met,” she said. “Without enough Pasto-speaking mental health providers, overcoming those mental health challenges is so much more challenging.”
“If some people have anxiety, depression, during this time they need Pashto to discuss, to convince, to talk. It’s really important,” he said., found that even though they’re grateful for peace and security in the U.S., language barriers contribute to stressors and evacuees’ poor mental health.In an empty lobby at the Center for Refugee Services after hours on Sept. 5, Sedeqi said refugees depend on updates to their immigration status in the U.S.
Findings from a 12-month study commissioned by the Archwell Foundation found that half of the women in the program report feeling little interest or pleasure in doing things or feeling hopeless for several days, anxiety or worry.Bria Woods / San Antonio Report
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