Clouds looming: Cook County is bracing for a financial storm to hit efforts to provide health care to migrants

Gael, a refugee from Venezuela, gets a checkup at Cook County Health’s Northwest Side clinic in Chicago last week. The boy traveled with his mother, Emili, as refugees. Health officials are trying to figure out how to manage the health care of an influx of migrants like these families. (Manuel Martinez/WBEZ)

Migrants sent to Chicago since late summer often arrive with very little — little food, few possessions, and for many, little or no access to health care for as long as they can remember despite their perilous journeys.

Dr. Denise Cunill recalled one such family of four who arrived at Cook County Health’s new clinic for asylum seekers in September with used flip-flops on their feet.