Caring for pregnant migrants

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, October 2nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Ministry to migrants.

Since 2020, an estimated 20-thousand migrants from Haiti have settled in the small Ohio town of Springfield, where the local population had been hovering around 60-thousand.

MAST: The town became a political flashpoint when former President Trump highlighted the immigration crisis there during the presidential debate. For many in Springfield it’s not been easy: a major influx of people from a very different culture and economic climate presents a daily challenge.

EICHER: But something else, too. WORLD reporter Maria Baer reports on a pregnancy resource center in Springfield, where the local staff rise to the challenge.

MARIA BAER: I pulled into the parking lot of the Pregnancy Resource Clinic of Clark County in Springfield, Ohio a few days ago expecting to see an expectant mother or two. I didn’t expect to see police dogs.

SOUND: [Traffic, cars passing by]

But when I arrived, it was just as the K9s were sniffing for bombs around the perimeter of the small brick building. There’d been a bomb threat that morning. Investigators say foreign entities have been calling in similar threats across Springfield since the presidential debate.

SOUND: [Leash jingling]

The police clear the threat and round up the dogs just in time for another unexpected visitor: Ohio’s first lady.

Fran DeWine, wife of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, has come for a tour. Clinic director Nicole Patch shows her and her aides inside, where soft piano music plays in the wide, bright lobby.

SOUND: [Doors squeaking, music, laughing]

It’s not every day the governor’s wife stops by to ask how she can help. But then things haven’t been exactly business-as-usual for the PRC of Clark County for a few years now.

AUDIO: We have seen an influx with our Haitian community needing diapers, wipes, formula, baby food…

Patch tells the first lady the clinic allocated an extra two-thousand dollars just last month on baby formula for local Haitian moms.

PATCH: We’re trying to get more formula. Yes formula, we can’t keep it on our shelves! (Laughter)

Almost as quickly as she arrived, Mrs. DeWine is off again in her black SUV.

AUDIO: Thank you, thank you so much, thank you…

Back inside the clinic, a few young moms have gathered in the lobby, waiting for their appointments.

AUDIO: [Soft music and baby sounds]

Director Nicole Patch says the clinic began seeing women from Haiti around three years ago. But the number dramatically increased in the last 18 months. She estimates a full 30 percent of the 24-hundred or so patients they serve per year are now non-English speakers.

PATCH: We’ve had to pivot, like when we started out, we were using Google translate and then when our patients would leave we would be like, I don’t think they know what their next steps are, like they just seemed confused.

Before the highway east out of Springfield stretches into farmland, there’s a wide stretch of manufacturing plants. There are at least two food packaging centers, and multiple steel plants. City officials say many Haitian immigrants came for these factory jobs.

It's likely, too, that once a few families settled here and sent word back home to Haiti, friends and relatives followed. Immigration often follows that pattern.

But there’s no reliable, institutionalized healthcare in Haiti, and learning to navigate America’s complicated medical system is a challenge for the migrants. Then there’s the language barrier.

Most of the Haitian women who visit the clinic speak Creole. Patch says her staff briefly tried using an app with an in-person interpreter. But after a few interpreters refused to translate when the women wanted to pray together, the clinic stopped using it.

PATCH: We laugh a lot, we point, we have like a list, a picture of all of the formulas we have and we make it work.

Sarah Graham, a longtime Springfield resident, works the pregnancy clinic’s front desk. Recently she decided to study Creole.

GRAHAM: [Speaking in Creole]… How can I help you? And I learned how to say… (Creole)…. I’m happy to see you!

Graham says learning even basic phrases has allowed her to connect with women who are facing desperate situations in an unfamiliar country. It’s caused some frustration, though, when other women are stuck waiting in the lobby while Graham and clinic staff fumble through the translation.

Christina Conover is the director of nursing for the local county health department in Springfield. She toured the pregnancy clinic with the governor’s wife, and she says the surge of migrants from Haiti has stretched Springfield’s already thin housing and medical resources.

CONOVER: It’s true, us as an agency, we have stumbled. Because it’s been so fast, so we are still trying to get our feet.

Conover says Springfield has suffered a shortage of medical providers for decades. The Haitian influx has stressed the system further, catching the attention of the state government. The state recently paid to send additional nurses to the health department to cut down on wait times for routine immunizations. Families are now waiting one month, instead of two, for vaccines.

There have been some reports that the migrants have brought with them communicable diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis, causing an uptick in Springfield. Conover says that’s technically true, but the hard numbers remain small.

CONOVER: So when people say there’s a 500 percent increase, well that’s because we started with one.

Sarah Graham at the pregnancy clinic says some cultural differences pose challenges, too.

GRAHAM: Sometimes the men speak for the women, and that’s ok, but we’d like to talk with her, so we do use a translation service and ask if it’s alright if we bring her back, just to get her input.

Graham and the clinic staff say they remain committed to never turning any woman away. Patch says as the clinic’s demand for more supplies has increased, so have the incoming gifts from donors. They’ve hired a student from nearby Cedarville University, a young girl who was adopted at 15 from Haiti, to translate for women here every Friday. But the clinic’s most precious offering to their patients doesn’t cost a dime.

Graham says she was able to share the gospel recently with a Haitian woman named Ann.

GRAHAM: In fact I had a brief conversation with her, and she said I know. I know your God. And I said then we’re sisters. And I love that.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Maria Baer in Springfield, Ohio.

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