Legislation in Sweden (national health system)
In Sweden, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are highly discriminated against by the legislation governing access to health care. The sole exceptions are children of asylum seekers, asylum seeking children and those children whose parents' application for asylum failed.
Asylum seeking adults are only entitled to access free of charge "care that cannot be postponed", ante and post natal care, family planning and abortion. They have to pay a patient contribution for some of these services.
Undocumented migrants have been totally invisible for the legislation. Only very recently, a law has formally referred to adult rejected asylum seekers only to leave them outside the categories of foreigners who have some access to the health system. Thus, undocumented migrants in Sweden, including children (other than children of rejected asylum seekers), pregnant women or persons in emergency situations or with serious infectious diseases do not have any access to health care free of charge and have great difficulties paying the high costs of the health services. Since there is not a formal prohibition to provide care to undocumented migrants, some county councils and public hospitals have adopted timid initiatives to provide some health care to this extremely marginalized social group.
Download the report on the Swedish legislation on the access to health care for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers (in English).
Download the Comparative overview of the legislation on access to health care for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in 16 countries (in Swedish). Click here to read the English version.
Swedish news on health care
Adult undocumented migrants in Sweden currently only have the opportunity to access emergency healthcare against full costs. The Swedish Government and the Green party have agreed upon expanding the legislation in the area of healthcare for undocumented migrants. The Government's announced ambition is that every person in Sweden shall have the same rights to healthcare. Parliament is to vote on a government proposal sometime early next year. It has not clearly been stated exactly yet which groups of undocumented migrants are to be included in the legislation, neither which types of healthcare are to be included.
Sweden has ceased the transfer of asylum seekers to Greece, under the Dublin Regulation. Sweden follows here the example of Belgium, the UK, Iceland and Norway, which have already stopped sending asylum seekers to Greece and are examining the cases nationally. Furthermore, Austria's Constitutional Court ruled that vulnerable asylum seekers must not be sent back to Greece. The Netherlands is also suspending transfers for those who challenge the decision to be transferred to Greece under the Dublin Regulation.
Source: ECRE weekly bulletin, 5 November 2010
This thesis, written by Baghir-Zada, Ramin, deals with illegal aliens in Sweden and the Netherlands with the main focus on health aspects. The three-fold aim is to investigate emergence of healthcare wants among illegal aliens, how they satisfy these wants (if they do so at all), and to explore the relation between their healthcare wants and health wants. Extensive fieldwork was conducted in both countries, including 42 interviews with illegal aliens in Sweden - and 38 in the Netherlands.
The Swedish government has announced plans to build specially-designed care centres in Afghanistan where unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Sweden can be returned to. The Swedish Migration Minister insisted that: "The most important thing is to enable the child to be reunited with his parents. If the only basis for a child to stay in Sweden is because they are alone, then it is better that they live in their home country while a search is conducted for their parents". Sweden is not the only country to announce such plans in response to an increase in the number of unaccompanied children seeking asylum. The Danish government has recently made public similar plans while the Netherlands has been funding reception facilities in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo for several years now.
Sources:
- ECRE Weekly Bulletin 26 March 2010
- The Local, 'Sweden plans Afghanistan orphanages'
Sweden's National Assembly of Health Professionals, the Vårdförbundet, issued a message to the Swedish Minister of State stating its opposition to the government's policy of blocking access to health care for undocumented migrants.
The medical professionals state that denying healthcare contravenes the codes of professional ethics that apply to Sweden's midwives, biomedical scientists, radiographers and nurses who have pledged to continue complying with the principle of human dignity and providing healthcare on equal terms and on needs. These medical professionals have vowed that the right to health, as guaranteed in international conventions, will always take precedence over national laws and regulations that contravene the principles. The Vårdförbundet's National Assembly strongly urged all parties in the Swedish Parliament to assume their responsibility so that people without papers and those in hiding throughout Sweden may gain access to health care on the same terms as the rest of the population.
Source: www.vardforbundet.se
http://www.mdm-international.org
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