Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, Volume 8, Issue 4

The Limits of Access to Healthcare for Refugees

The question of access to healthcare for refugees is a thorny one and one that has been explored in a number of papers in this journal in the past. The need to differentiate issues of access from issues of entitlement have been highlighted, with the latter relating to the legal stipulations as to what healthcare asylum seekers and refugees are allowed, while the former is concerned with the question of whether they actually receive the healthcare they are entitled to (Watters, 2008). The papers gathered for this edition offer important reflections on issues of access drawn from research in three countries; the USA, Sweden and the UK. In each a light is shone on a specific dimension of the problem.

In the first paper, Power and Pratt point to the particular problems faced by a relatively new refugee group, the Karen from Burma, with a distinctive culture and language. They offer a nuanced examination of the problems of access borne in part through a limited understanding of the distinctive nature of the group and the complexities of interpretation. Their findings are important, not least in developing healthcare that is appropriately responsive to the needs of refugee groups who fall outside the main groupings within a locality.

A further issue of access is reflected in the survey presented by Burström and colleagues conducted in Sweden. Not only do they note a very high prevalence of mental ill health among their sample but they also highlight the role of environmental factors in aggravating asylum seekers’ problems. They make the interesting suggestion that services are receptive to the impact of “eco-social conditions” on mental health.

Zimmermann and colleagues also raise important issues about access, in this instance in relation to healthcare for asylum seekers in detention in the UK. In this instance, this question is inextricably linked to questions of the visibility of asylum seekers’ healthcare needs in a context in which a high proportion of detainees have one or more physical or mental health problems prior to entering detention.

Charles Watters