Ensuring better healthcare for everyone

Jay Subedi, Bhutan

Owner of TruCare Connections. Several locations in Upstate New York

By Mary Beth Roach

“I’m a very fortunate immigrant. Everything is possible in this country.”

Jay Subedi held onto that belief when he came to Syracuse in 2008 from Bhutan, via a refugee camp in Nepal. He worked diligently in the area for several years and in 2017 started a healthcare company with family that would impact the lives of other immigrants and new Americans.

Through his years working for a local social services agency and a sandwich shop and owning two grocery stores, Subedi saw firsthand a need in the immigrant community for help in navigating the healthcare system here.

To meet that need, he and his family founded TruCare Connections. Primarily, it provides personal care services and at-home care management under Medicaid and Medicare. It also partners with some local healthcare providers to offer health clinics and health and wellness in the community. Moreover, anyone who needs help with medical paperwork or bills or has healthcare questions is welcome to walk into their offices at 731 James St. and ask for assistance.

Subedi is vice president and heads the Syracuse office, but it is headquartered in Rochester, with additional locations in Buffalo and Utica. They are planning a location in Albany.

Prior to opening the business, Subedi had been working several jobs, including one at InterFaith Works, an organization in Syracuse which, among its programs, offers social services to refugees who arrive through federal refugee resettlement programs.

It was here where Subedi said he really saw the barriers that immigrants and new Americans faced regarding healthcare, and his company works to meet that need.

Currently, Subedi said that they have 50 administrative staff, approximately 700 caregivers and close to 1,300 clients across Upstate New York. Their international staff can provide assistance in 20-plus languages.

Subedi and his family fled Bhutan — a small landlocked country located in southern Asia between Tibet and India — in 1990 due to its oppressive One Nation, One Culture policy adopted in 1985.

Although he and generations of his family before him were born in the south of Bhutan, they were considered Nepali ethnically.

For centuries, immigrants from Nepal came to Bhutan for work and settled in the southern part of that country. Bhutan’s Citizenship Acts in 1958 and 1985 made matters worse for those in this region. The government then began classifying citizens based on their birth years. Anyone born before 1958 was considered an illegal immigrant and faced exportation. This only served to divide families in a culture that was very family-oriented.

One of Subedi’s uncles, born prior to 1958, was tortured and forced to sign a letter saying he would take his entire family and leave the country in 13 days or face a lifetime in jail. His family would end up living in a refugee camp in Nepal from 1992 to 2008.

At this time, he said, he only dreamed of coming to the United States. Eventually, through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Subedi and his family were allowed into the U.S. With his grandmother and an uncle already here in Syracuse, the family was able to reunite here.

Through his work, especially at InterFaith Works, he was able to develop a strong network that was instrumental when he was ready to launch TruCare.

He started the business in a small building on Syracuse’s north side and moved to its James Street location. But it is outgrowing its current space. Subedi is currently in talks to buy the building and move TruCare to another floor with a larger footprint.

From the refugee camps of Nepal, Subedi has come to make a difference in the lives of fellow immigrants in the Upstate New York area and soon, in the real estate market as well.

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