No documents, no healthcare

Access to healthcare is not equal for everyone, even in Europe. This is the conclusion that was drawn following a public hearing at the European Parliament in which civil society representatives and European experts came together to discuss the barriers that immigrants without documents face when seeking medical attention within European borders.

Members of the European Parliament were confronted with evidence proving that substantial inequalities exist across the EU, especially for children and pregnant women. So, although the Lisbon Treaty calls for universality and equality and considers the protection of children’s rights one of the main EU objectives, and although the Convention on the Rights of the Child protects both children and pregnant women, if they are undocumented they are unlikely to receive healthcare.

According to research conducted by Médecins du Monde and HUMA, the debate concerning undocumented migrants continues to be rooted in the fight against “illegal immigration” and no debate has  been opened so far about the need to protect undocumented migrants’ rights. As a consequence, member states often use health care as an instrument to control migration rather than consider it as a right that has to be protected according to their international human rights obligations. As each EU member state has established its own system of regulating undocumented migrants’ access to health care, the rights and administrative conditions imposed on this population vary considerably from country to country.

“Nine European countries – Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK – do not guarantee access to health care for undocumented women and children,” said Olivier Bernard, Chairman of Médecins du Monde. The 7 countries where there is a good juridical protection for children and pregnant women, including children of undocumented migrants are: Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Romania, Italy and Malta.

Médecins du Monde/HUMA research also highlighted that in the UK and  Greece women have to pay the full costs of any delivery care they receive from hospitals during childbirth except in emergency cases. In Germany, undocumented pregnant women and children can not access healthcare, because public administrations are bound to the duty to denounce undocumented migrants, in all but emergency cases. In Poland, children of undocumented migrants can only access limited healthcare at school. To finish, in Sweden undocumented migrants must bear the full costs of any healthcare services they receive.

The hearing was hosted by several political groups and carried out in partnership with Médecins du Monde, the HUMA network, the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) and the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN).