We have dealt with health issues for 25-plus years.
I think the uniqueness with the Syrians is the numbers. The process we set up involved working very closely with health professionals and having, within the first week, an assessment of families, so the children, the mother, the father, everyone in the family.
We worked very closely with organizations to ensure that we had interpreters. We usually had two or three interpreters per group.
In some cases when there was a health emergency, we were able to help that family or that individual connect very quickly to primary care support. We had many cases of people who were arriving sick, so we very quickly got them assessed and got them connected to a hospital. Lately we have been trying to connect each of those people to a primary health care provider.
It has meant a lot more work for health care professionals in the community, but a lot more coordination of the work. The coordination aspect, to get medical professionals and hospitals working together and to ensure that we had interpreters who could work with the families when they went to the hospital, was very critical.