SPicture of Suzanne Gagnonuzanne Gagnon is a professor at the Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine Department, Université Laval, Québec

The RESTORE conference took place from March 26–27th 2015 in Limerick, Ireland.

 

As a professor in Family Medicine at Laval University and cofounder of the Refugee Health Clinic in Québec, I was pretty interested in attending this conference. I was more than satisfied at the end of it. Seeing all the dynamic research studies that have been conducted for refugees and the implementation of concrete projects was so stimulating. In these times of austerity and with shortages of resources in many countries, it was interesting to see that some European countries have started this implementation work from the ground up, but with the involvement of the main health organizations at the European level.

In Québec, we have developed a network of clinical sites with health professionals dedicated to the physical and psychosocial care of refugees in their first year in Canada. This program runs in cooperation with community organizations and is financed by the provincial government. The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion have also contributed, but we never thought about involving the American chapter of the World Health Organization (the Pan-American Health Organization; PAHO). The RESTORE project and this conference gave me this idea to bring back for discussion in Québec.

Many speakers were very interesting, and some of them were from North America, including Professor Joe LeMaster from Kansas. All these high-quality presentations and workshops increased my enthusiasm and will help me to pursue my efforts to improve this field so neglected in the past. What I will remember the most will be all the new people I have met and the hospitality and professionalism of the Irish organizers. I am looking forward to using this network for much collaboration on researching the care of migrants in the future!

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