Launch of the European Declaration for a non discriminatory access to healthcare

Health professionals commit themselves to the respect of their professional ethics. Sign the declaration on the petition website.

Today in Europe, access to health care for all is not respected. This is particularly true for asylum seekers, undocumented migrants and their children. In this context, Médecins du Monde and the European HUMA network[1] is launching the European Declaration for a non discriminatory access to healthcare to mobilise health professionals and health organisations and gather as many signatures as possible.

Already signed (in France): le Pr Didier Sicart (Honorific President of the National Ethics Advisory Committee), Comède (on behalf its President, Dr Didier Fassin), Daniel Le Scornet (mutualist, initiator of the Universal health care coverage in France), French trade union of public health inspectors (on behalf its President Dr Christian Lahoute), Collectif inter associatif sur la santé (Inter-associations group on health care); and at EU level: Standing Committee of European Doctors; European Association of Senior Hospital Physicians Association; Active citizenship network

 

The tightening of policies against immigrant populations continues, with a new warhorse of the government: its willingness, shared with some members of parliaments, to have the people pay 30 euros to be able to benefit from State Medical Assistance (AME), or even to limit the care taken in charge by AME to emergencies only. Our organisations [2] reiterate their opposition to this new attack against the AME, that would be dangerous in terms of public health, economically disastrous, socially unjust and discriminatory.

 

Indeed, currently, in the European Union, doctors and other health professionals note that their practice is largely hampered by health policies that sometimes deny the fundamental right to health for all, especially for undocumented migrants. Thus, according to the results of the survey of Médecins du Monde European Observatory on access to healthcare on undocumented migrants [3], only 36% of the interviewees theoretically entitled to a health coverage were benefiting from it. These results emphasize the existence of numerous administrative barriers, restrictive laws and the interrelation between health and immigration policies.

 

The situation is clear and disturbing: health professionals are not always able to practice medicine according to their professional ethics. In this context, the European Declaration is a way for health professionals and health organisations to reaffirm, collectively and at a European level, their commitment to the professional ethics that guide their work and to ask for its respect.

 

This declaration is open for signature from 14 September 2010 and until 21 March 2010 and will be lunched in 12 EU countries. This Declaration will be handed over to the Council of Ministers of Health in March 2011 in order to enforce national health policies guaranteeing access to health care without discrimination, regardless of the administrative status.

 

Click here to read the text of the European Declaration

Press contacts:

Florence Priolet, Annabelle Quénet - +33 1 44 92 14 31 -32 / +33 6 09 17 35 59

www.huma-network.org / www.medecinsdumonde.org

 

 

[1] The HUMA Network (Health for Undocumented Migrants and Asylum seekers), launched by Médecins du Monde in order to promote access to health care for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in Europe, is constituted by 16 NGO members in 16 EU countries.

[2] Press release of Fnars, MdM, ODSE, Uniopss and CISS, September 6th, 2010

[3] European Observatory on access to healthcare on undocumented migrants, 2009.

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