{"id":856292,"date":"2025-06-17T22:13:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T03:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/17\/mass-health-care-workers-send-open-letter-to-protect-immigrant-access-to-care\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T22:13:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T03:13:48","slug":"mass-health-care-workers-send-open-letter-to-protect-immigrant-access-to-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/17\/mass-health-care-workers-send-open-letter-to-protect-immigrant-access-to-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass. health care workers send open letter to protect immigrant access to care"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Health and Law Immigrant Solidarity Network sent the letter, which garnered more than 400 signatures, to seven of the largest health care networks in the state.<\/h2>\n
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\n\tMass General Brigham, the state\u2019s largest health system, is getting public pressure from its own employees to resist federal funding threats. Lane Turner\/Globe Staff<\/em>\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n

A group of health care providers, legal professionals, and community members sent an open letter<\/a> Wednesday to Massachusetts health organizations to protect patients\u2019 access to health care amid deportation fears among immigrants.<\/p>\n

The Health and Law Immigrant Solidarity Network sent the letter, which garnered more than 400 signatures, to seven of the largest health care networks in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmid a barrage of dehumanizing rhetoric and new anti-immigrant policies, knowing that immigration agents may target healthcare facilities is already harming the health of immigrants, their families and our communities,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n

The letter comes months after President Donald Trump<\/a> threw out a policy that classifies schools, churches, and hospitals as sensitive locations for migrant arrests.<\/p>\n

Lara Jirmanus, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing family physician, founded the network in 2017, and it has since grown to 600 members that include health care workers and law professionals.<\/p>\n

This is the first public action the network has taken; it usually focuses on sharing resources and monitoring hospital actions, Jirmanus said. The letter took months to draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us a few weeks to figure out whether immigrant communities thought that this type of thing would be useful,\u201d Jirmanus said. \u201cAfterward, we got the message that, yes, the more people who speak up, the better. We need the voice of health care workers out there saying that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to protecting patient privacy and access to health care, the letter also demands that the hospitals communicate that their facilities are safe to receive care, advocate for their immigrant patients and colleagues, and create medical-legal partnerships.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want as much as possible to be able to help provide care in a way that addresses or mitigates their fears,\u201d Jirmanus said. \u201cThere\u2019s an element of this work which is figuring out, refining tools, and sitting down and meeting with leadership to try and negotiate an industry standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauren Kearney, a critical care physician who has been practicing medicine for eight years, said she did not know many of her patients\u2019 immigration statuses until the administration\u2019s actions, when her patients missed appointments or were tearful during them because of their fears.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest thing that I recognize from the executive orders, the policies, the rhetoric, is that it\u2019s spreading fear that doesn\u2019t just mean fear for patients to come to appointments, that literally means fear for them to leave their homes,\u201d said Kearney, a new member of the Health and Law Immigrant Solidarity Network.<\/p>\n

There are some<\/a> resources that provide guidance on how patients and workers can best navigate care during this time, one<\/a> notably from the Massachusetts Attorney General\u2019s Office released on Jan. 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kearney said while these guidelines are helpful, the network believes there should be a concrete, industry-wide standard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very blessed in the state to have so many health care institutions, but what that also means is that many patients don\u2019t get care at just one place,\u201d she said. \u201cTo really optimize the safety of immigrant patients, it takes every hospital doing everything that they can to keep patients safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kearney said conversations are ongoing as far as next steps for the group but that they hope to meet with representatives from the hospitals the letter was addressed to and to educate others on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the best things about my job is that I do get to build relationships with people and really understand them as humans,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I\u2019m talking to people who don\u2019t have that privilege that I have, it is just reminding them that everyone is a person, and so everyone should be able to go into a hospital and not be fearful.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Health The Health and Law Immigrant Solidarity Network sent the letter, which garnered more than 400 signatures, to seven of the largest health care networks in the state. Mass General Brigham, the state\u2019s largest health system, is getting public pressure from its own employees to resist federal funding threats. Lane Turner\/Globe Staff A group of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":856293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267,198],"tags":[7419,5910],"class_list":{"0":"post-856292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"category-workers","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-workers"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}