For the past year, Newtown’s Julia Sughrue has volunteered full-time at Philadelphia’s Nationalities Service Center (NSC) as a refugee health clinic liaison through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

As described at nscphila.org, NSC is committed to providing high-quality, comprehensive services to immigrants and refugees in the Greater Philadelphia area, and Sughrue takes pride having assisted in this process.

A 2017 Newtown High School grad, Sughrue earned her Bachelor’s degrees in Neuroscience and Global Public Health at Boston College and has enjoyed what she described as a challenging and rewarding time at NSC since last August.

“In my time at NSC, I worked with newly arrived refugees in Philadelphia to assist in establishing sustainable health care in the US. This included conducting introductory health orientations about the US healthcare system, accompanying clients to their required initial bloodwork and health screening appointments, in addition to empowering clients to manage any required follow-up care,” she said.

“My favorite part about my job is how much I have to learn and grow from each of my clients every day. Each person I meet is kind enough to share their stories, perspectives, culture, and language with me,” Sughrue said.

“I started this job in August of 2021 around the same time that Kabul, the capital city in Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban. After resettling only 100 refugees in Philadelphia in 2020, NSC transformed to accommodate and resettle almost 600 Afghan evacuees over the course of four months,” she recalled.

“I worked personally with over 300 Afghan evacuees during these months, in which my clients taught me phrases in Dari or Pashto, shared Afghan recipes, showed me photos of their family members back home, and told me why they were forced to flee to the United States,” Sughrue said.

The job is not without some obstacles ranging from the mental and emotional challenges for Sughrue, to overcoming communication and language hurdles.

“One of the most challenging aspects of this position is to see the ongoing trauma my clients live with each day,” she said. “All refugees are forced to leave their country to escape war, persecution or natural disaster.

“Often the trauma experienced in their country continues in the US as they miss the family members they had to leave behind, worry about their safety, and work difficult jobs to support their families in their home countries. My clients show amazing strength every day as they work to create a new life for themselves in the US and find community in Philadelphia,” she said.

Breaking Language Barriers

Sughrue and her clients had to overcome language and cultural barriers that they encountered with each other.

“For clients who speak uncommon languages, the availability of interpretation services can be limited,” Sughrue explained. “Clients must actively advocate for themselves within the health care system to ensure that doctors provide interpretation services that all patients are entitled to by law at federally funded hospitals or health centers.”

“I know it required a lot of trust for clients to follow me on trains and buses to hospitals throughout Philadelphia, knowing that we do not speak the same language. However, the more I learned, the more we would be able to communicate through short phrases and body language,” Sughrue said.

There are also major cultural differences in the health care system, she added.

“For many clients, in their home countries, you are able to simply walk in to the local hospital to immediately see a doctor and receive low-cost medication. Oftentimes, the appointment scheduling process, long waits for appointments and the expenses were an adjustment for my clients. One client in particular was even more shocked when I revealed that you also need appointments for haircuts, and even ‘appointments’ for more popular restaurants,” Sughrue said.

Sughrue said she learned about NSC’s services through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, which placed her in Philadelphia along with five other people working in different sectors of social service.

“After interviewing with many different social services placement sites, I chose NSC and luckily, they chose me too,” she said.

With Sughrue’s year with NSC concluding this summer, she will be starting a new position at the Public Health Management Corporation Care Clinic, a sliding-scale health clinic in Philly as a Medical Case Manager for people living with HIV or AIDS, beginning in early September.

“In the future, I hope to continue learning from Philadelphia’s refugee community within my career or as part of my life outside of work. I hope to stay connected to the many beautiful people I have met this year in Philadelphia,” she said.

NSC’s Refugee and Community Integration department provides a wide-range of services to meet the needs of newly arriving refugees, victims of human trafficking and unaccompanied children.

According to its website, NSC is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2022 and has grown to be the largest and most comprehensive provider of services in the Greater Philadelphia region with a goal to welcome refugees, victims of human trafficking, and unaccompanied children, and put them on a path to self-sufficiency and create a safe and permanent residency.

More information may be found at www.nscphila.org.

Andy Hutchison can be reached at andyh@thebee.com.