Peak Vista Community Health Center is proud to provide health coverage for immigrants and refugees. As a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), our ongoing mission is to remove barriers and increase access to quality medical care for the underinsured and uninsured. That is why it’s important that our services also extend to immigrant health care.
Refugee Care is provided at the Logan Center on the Myron Stratton campus, and handles both the intake process as well as medical care. With an estimated 150 refugees annually, Peak Vista works with Lutheran Family Services as its community partner in this effort.
Coordination between the two agencies includes:
Peak Vista Community Health Center also serves as the point of contact for the state health department, the University of Denver Infectious Disease Department, and the El Paso County Department of Health and Environment with regard to the refugee population.
In addition, Peak Vista serves as a liaison with the state refugee program for completion of all immigration program requirements, ensuring all necessary paperwork is forwarded to the state.
A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country to escape persecution, war, or a natural disaster. According to the United Nations Refugee Convention, the official definition of a refugee is an individual who: “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country.”
Refugee families with children under the age of 18 are eligible for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Medicaid. Refugees who do not qualify for these programs are still eligible for Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) and Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) for their first eight months in the United States