Making strides in care for refugees, immigrants

New clinics and organizations are helping refugees and immigrants get good health care. Sometimes the drawback is language, other times it is cultural differences, but these women are often not diagnosed in time to save them. - - Donna Poisl

BY CYNTHIA BILLHARTZ GREGORIAN, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Joumana Kheireddine, an immigrant from Beirut, Lebanon, could feel the lump in her breast. A big, hard lump.

Three times, the 35-year-old mother of four went to a community health center in St. Louis in 2006. And all three times a doctor there barely examined her before pronouncing her too young to have breast cancer, she said.

Months passed. In January 2007, Kheireddine broke her back. That's when she learned she had Stage 4 breast cancer that had metastasized to bones throughout her body.
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