To provide care

Health is a crucial part of any successful integration plan…

Living conditions on the street can seriously affect both the physical and mental health of the homeless. Those who are on the outermost fringes of society often fail to look after themselves properly; they reject their own bodies, which become practically foreign to them. They are suffering every day.

Health centre

Ever since the ABEJ-Lille was first set up, doctors and nurses have been seeing the homeless because, as they are so marginalised, they tend not to go to conventional doctors’ surgeries. Here once again, the medical team must talk to the sick before they can care for them, and start by restoring trust. Once the person in question has become more independent, he or she will be guided towards the conventional health system.

The medical team is multidisciplinary: doctors, nurses and psychologists all work at the Abej Solidarités, at the Point de Repère and at the accommodation centre, some as employees and some as volunteers.

In the front line amongst people who are not very sensitive to the subject of health, the medical staff from the ABEJ also pick up the baton passed on by public campaigns through preventive initiatives: health education, vaccination campaigns, an infectious risk reduction programme.

The association’s health centre acts as a health watchdog for the most deprived people in our society. The ABEJ-Lille is one of the founder members of the Réseau Santé Solidarité Lille Métropole (Metropolitan Lille Health and Solidarity Network).

http://www.sante-solidarite.org