Paul Caulford

Paul Caulford is a Canadian advocate, academic, and family doctor in Scarborough, Toronto who provides free healthcare to refugees, undocumented migrants and other newcomers who are unable to get healthcare through the formal channels.

He was the chief of family medicine and was the community services director at Scarborough Hospital when the SARS epidemic hit Canada hardest in 2003 and he co-founded the Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Health Care.

Caulford publishes academic papers and advocates for immigrants and refugees to have full access to the Canadian healthcare system.

Education Caulford obtained a bachelor's degree of science in 1972, a Master of Science in 1975 and a degree in medicine in 1978 all from the University of Toronto. He points out how the healthcare systems both in Canada and internationally were incapable of responding to the pandemic and called for investments to create more robust systems. Caulford and nurses Jennifer D’Andrade and Cathy Tersigni co-founded the Community Volunteer Clinic in Scarborough, Ontario after discovering that despite Canada's claim of a universal public healthcare system, thousands of refugee claimants and undocumented forced migrants were being denied access to public healthcare insurance. Staffed with volunteer nurses, doctors and community members, and dedicated to the care of uninsured refugees and migrants, the Clinic was first of its kind in Canada. Renamed The Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Health Care Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Health Care (CCRIHC), which is located in a converted church at 4158 Sheppard Avenue East. By early 2021, CCRIH treated patients 40,000 times.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Caulford provided family medicine services online

He criticized Donald Trump's immigration policies in 2017,

In January 2020, Caulford spoke of the need for COVID-19 vaccines to be provided outside of normal working hours. Later in 2020, he launched a successful advocacy campaign to persuade the Federal Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario to provide hospital care to people without documentation.

In 2021, Caulford spoke about how many poor people have moved away from the centre of Toronto to Scarborough.

Scarborough Women Assessment and Need Caulford runs the Scarborough Women Assessment and Need program that provides counselling and reproductive health care to vulnerable women in Scarborough. Paul Caulford & J D'Andrade, Health care for Canada's medically uninsured immigrants and refugees: Whose problem is it?, 2012, Canadian Family Physician, 58(7) p725-727 Norman GR, Davis DA, Lamb S, Hanna E, Caulford P, Kaigas T. Competency Assessment of Primary Care Physicians as Part of a Peer Review Program. JAMA. 1993;270(9):1046–1051. doi:10.1001/jama.1993.03510090030007

Awards Caulford, and his team at the Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Health Care, received the Public Health Champion Award in 2008. Also in 2008 Caulford received the Government of Ontario's Newcomer Champion Award.

In 2010 Caulford was honoured with the Scarborough Urban Heroes award for his efforts to bring medical and dental care to medically uninsured and underinsured refugees, asylum seekers and forcibly displaced migrants. https://www.toronto.com/content/tncms/live/

In 2016 Caulford accepted the Rotary District 7070 Wilf Wilkinson International Peace Award on behalf of The Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Health Care. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/09/26/1327935/0/en/The-Canadian-Centre-for-Refugee-and-Immigrant-Health-Care-Receives-the-2016-ROTARY-DISTRICT-7070-Wilf-Wilkinson-Peace-Award.html

Caulford received the Ontario College of Family Physicians Regional Family Physician of the Year Award in 2017.

He was one of five physicians recognized by Toronto Life for his inspiring work in 2020.

Caulford was inducted into the Scarborough Walk of Fame and received his Star in 2022 in recognition of his contributions during the 2003 SARS Crisis in Toronto and for providing health equity to medically uninsured refugees and undocumented newcomers in Canada.