Human trafficking is a serious problem that should be controlled by imposing national and international parameters. The ER nurse Danielle Bastien has come up with a new program that helps to control and stop human trafficking cases. It is against the fundamental human rights and is a social wrong which should be condemned by everyone.
Bastien says that most of the trafficking cases involve a controlling person to accompany the victim. This person speaks up and answers most of the questions asked to the victim even for the basic documents, identification and other documents.
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Bastien has a doctoral degree in Nursing and serves as Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. She explains that such a person comes to the hospital alone and is usually engaged on his phone. This is how these human traffickers keep control over them through direct communication.
Bastien also reports such victims to be on a GPS or any hearing device used throughout attending the medical care.
One common thing in all these cases is that their injuries and wounds don’t match with their respective stories. For example, some of the cases involve sexual reproductive disorders such as abortions or urinary tract infections (UTI’s). These signs are so frequently repeated that it is easy to identify them, Bastien says.
Paying attention to these signs could help to stop human trafficking cases, she believes. Having a screening tool used in the healthcare system or by healthcare workers could help to locate these cases and save women and children who fall prey to this trafficking racket.
Bastien has finally come up with a program that could save millions of lives involved in human trafficking cases. This program would be first implemented at Henry Ford Health System.
The problem with planning effective measures for trafficking is that there is no reliable informatics on the problem. Terry FitzPatrick who serves as the communications and advocacy director at Free the Slaves believes that without statistics, it is hard to predict the people at risk.
As per an estimate, there are nearly 40 million people who are stuck in this trafficking, which is no less than modern-day slavery. These people are forced to smuggling, labor, marriages, and sex trade.
he National Human Trafficking Hotline reports the US-Canada border to have 7th highest number of trafficking cases in the world, showing the high prevalence of this problem in the US.
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This anti-human trafficking cases program developed by Bastien is named “Human Trafficking Screening.” This program maintains an electronic record of medical history that is added to the respective healthcare records. All the hospital staff is trained to use this program and look for unusual signs i.e. suspicious wounds and bruises.
If there is a person who qualified for all these symptoms, a primary nurse would show up to ask detailed questions and offer help. This program which was implemented on December 6, 2017, in ER is showing good results.
The hospital staff is doing everything that they can to stop human trafficking cases. After its success in the ER, other hospital units have also shown an interest to implement it.
Most of the people are receptive and open to it. The response to this new program from medical professionals and people, in general, is remarkable. More than 50 hospitals from North America have contacted Bastien to ask for help in adopting the same. And nearly 12 of them have successfully implemented similar protocols to control human trafficking.
