Newsletter Septiembre 2009 - Número 7 (en inglés)

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

GERMANY

Prohibition to denounce undocumented migrants extended to the welfare services

The previous administrative instructions for the ‘Residence Act’ (Aufenthaltsgesetz) already prevented health professionals and administrative staff of hospitals from denouncing undocumented migrants to the authorities, contrary to the welfare services, which were obliged to inform the immigration authorities if they learned about a foreigner living without legal residence status.

According to new instructions released by the Bundesrat on 18 September 2009, the prohibition to denounce is extended to social welfare services. The new administrative instructions are available (in German) here (p. 507-509).

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UNITED NATIONS - Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights

Immigration control must not compromise human rights

On September 17^th, the Human Rights Council held an expert panel on current trends, good practices, challenges and possible solutions to detention of irregular migrants and explore ways to prevent violations of their human rights.

When opening the panel, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay drew attention to the disturbing trend of criminalizing irregular migration and how it can lead to unnecessary detention and human rights violations. “The association of irregular migration with criminality promotes the stigmatization of migrants and encourages a climate of xenophobia and hostility against them.” She stressed that terms such as “illegal immigrants” should be avoided and replaced by the internationally accepted definitions of “irregular” or “undocumented” migrants, which more accurately describe the situation of not having, or having lost, the proper documents allowing them to reside in a given territory or to work there.

PUBLICATIONS

“Access to Health Care for Undocumented Migrants in 11 European countries”

Médecins du Monde (MDM) published its second European Observatory report on Access to Healthcare for Undocumented Migrants. MDM interviewed more than 1200 undocumented migrants in 11 European countries. The report shows that undocumented migrants often do not have access to healthcare because of various reasons like restrictive laws preventing them from accessing healthcare, their inability to pay, a lack of information, administrative obstacles and discriminative practices within the healthcare systems.

The report is available in 9 languages at www.mdm-international.org.

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“Access to Health Care for Undocumented Migrants and Asylum Seekers in 10 EU countries – Law and practice”

This first report of the ‘HUMA network’ seeks to provide a detailed view of the different legal systems regulating access to health care for undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in 10 EU countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom).

For each of these countries, the report gives a detailed view of the legal access to a variety of care (emergency care, primary and secondary health care, hospitalisation, ante and post natal care), and to a variety of treatment (medicines, HIV screening and treatment), for adults and for children, depending on their status: nationals or authorised residents, asylum seekers, undocumented migrants.

The report also examines what the legal provisions are as regards access to health care in detention centres, transfer or access to information about administrative status by the authorities, and as regards ‘non expulsion for medical reasons’. Finally, the report confronts these national legal frameworks with the situation in practice.

The full report and its executive summary are available here. The executive summary is also available in French and in Spanish.

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‘Returned to Risk: Deportation of HIV-Positive Migrants’

National governments, in cooperation with international agencies and donors, should reconsider deportation policies for people living with HIV/AIDS, four HIV/AIDS and human rights groups said in a report released today.

The 27-page report was prepared by Human Rights Watch, Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, the European AIDS Treatment Group, and the African HIV Policy Network.

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Ethnic Health Care Advisors: A Good Strategy to Improve the Access to Health Care and Social Welfare Services for Ethnic Minorities?

By using outreach activities and individual contacts, HC advisors were able to reach ethnic minority groups, obtain insight into their problems and inform them about health care and welfare services and topics. In this way they helped them understand and gain trust in health care and welfare services and professionals and so improved knowledge and health literacy (…). Success factors that helped the HC advisors reach ethnic minorities, provide them with information, and lower the barriers to health care and welfare services were the ethnic background of the HC advisor, introduction of both a female and a male HC advisor, and creating possibilities for individual contacts at popular locations, and conducting outreach work including individual contacts and group classes.

426 J Community Health (2009) 34:419–429

UPCOMING EVENTS

‘Duty to give care is under pressure!’

On Thursday 15 October 2009, Dokters van de Wereld (MDM Netherlands) organizes a congress on the theme ‘Duty to give care is under pressure!’ which will be discussed from a medical/ethical, financial and juridical point of view.

Participants will be invited by a panel to debate about eventual barriers which stand in the way in giving the adequate care, and what solutions they already found to break down those obstacles. The congress will be held in De Balie in Amsterdam. Further details are available here.