Check out this episode to learn from Chloé Cébron and Shezeen Suleman who are part of a growing movement mobilizing for the right to health care for all people living in Canada, regardless of immigration status. In this episode, Chloé, the director of policy and advocacy at Médecins du Monde, shares lessons from a successful advocacy campaign to expand health care coverage for all children living in Quebec. Then Shezeen, a midwife and co-chair of the Health Network for Uninsured Clients in Toronto, reflects on using advocacy as a strategy for health equity.

(00:00) Introduction

(6:44) Interview with Chloé Cébron

(40:04) Interview with Shezeen Suleman

Episode Guests: Chloé Cébron is a lawyer in international humanitarian law and human rights and the director of policy and advocacy at Médecins du Monde Canada. For nearly 15 years, she has worked for humanitarian health organizations as a legal, policy and advocacy advisor in a dozen countries. Since 2017, she has been working for Médecins du Monde Canada and coordinates the organization’s advocacy on access to health care for migrants with precarious status in Canada. Shezeen Suleman is a midwife in Toronto, co-leading the MATCH program at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre. She has worked as a midwife in the city for over 10 years and before this worked as a youth worker in neighborhoods across the city; these roots in community work inform her practice as a midwife. Shezeen also co-chairs the Health Network for Uninsured Clients in the GTA, aiming to create and maintain dignified pathways to care for people living without OHIP.

Learn more:

Precarious immigration status, precarious health: Working together to ensure healthcare for all women living in Quebec (MdM, 2023)

Bill 83: Implementation & Information (MdM, 2021)

Health Network for Uninsured Clients resources & report (HNUC, 2023)

Let’s Talk: Advocacy & health equity (NCCDH, 2015)

Does public health advocacy seek to redress health inequities? A scoping review (Cohen & Marshall, 2017)

Disrupting Migrant Work [Season 1, Episode 4] (NCCDH, 2023)

Episode Credits: Production for this episode was led by Rebecca Cheff, with contributions from Carolina Jimenez, Pemma Muzumdar and host Bernice Yanful. The Mind the Disruption project team is led by Rebecca Cheff, with technical production and original music by Chris Perry. Promotion by Caralyn Vossen. Artwork by comet art + design. Mind the Disruption is a podcast by the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health. NCCDH is hosted by St. Francis Xavier University and funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of PHAC.