Book Talk | We Wait for a Miracle: Health Care and the Forcibly Displaced by Muhammad H. Zaman

The Global Compact on Refugees calls for more responsibility-sharing among states to “expand and enhance the quality of national health services to facilitate access to refugees and host communities.” The health care challenges experienced by displaced people are complex and multidimensional. This requires not only a wider understanding of the drivers of forced displacement, but also an analysis of the barriers to health care as well as innovative ways to address them. While some host countries have policies that allow refugees to access health and social services, that access may be restricted, expensive, and involve other barriers, such as distance to health facilities, language, and discrimination by providers. In We Wait for a Miracle, Muhammad H. Zaman shares moving stories that span seven countries—Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Colombia, and Venezuela— to highlight the experiences and everyday struggles of refugees and the displaced people in accessing the health care they need. “In this beautiful book, Zaman pushes past statistics and stereotypes to write with complexity, urgency, and insight about health crises facing displaced people. His fast-paced narrative shows individuals in impossible situations who nonetheless construct webs of trust, compassion, and loving care that most of the world rarely sees,” writes Jessica Goudeau, author of After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America. Using the lived experience of the displaced people, Zaman spotlights three factors that influence access to health care: presence or absence of trust between the provider and patient, social network, and policy environment. Join the Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative on March 7 for a book discussion with the author. Speakers will highlight the multifaceted relationship between the displaced people and the local host community and how that affects access to health care; key lessons that would shape policy and our understanding of the displaced people’s access to health services; neglected policy areas that need visibility in refugee health discourse; and the importance of lived experience and storytelling.

Location:

6th Floor Flom Auditorium, Woodrow Wilson Center

and Online