Undocumented Migrants: their needs and strategies for accessing health care in Switzerland. Country Report on People & Practices

Author(s) : Chantal Wyssmüller, Denise Efionayi-Mäder

Source : https://www.unine.ch/sfm/wp-content/uploads/sites/100/2011_Undocumented-migrants.pdf

Abstract:

“An estimated 1 to 4% of the overall population of Europe are undocumented migrants (UDM) (see Bilger and Hollomey 2011 ; Clandestino-Project 2010 ; 2009), living in a “NowHereLand”, where they face potentially precarious and health-threatening living conditions. NowHereLand is a paradoxical place: inhabitants are officially invisible, yet remain part of social reality, and health care providers have to deal with them and with the conflicting demands of immigration control, of the basic human right for health care, and of the simple desire to help. Health care organisations and professionals face a dilemma: if they provide care, they may,
under some circumstances, be contravening legal and financial regulations, if they
do not provide care they are violating the Hippocratic Oath, human rights and excluding the most vulnerable. Furthermore, the issue of legal status confronts UDM with their own dilemma, as demanding access to health care may threaten their position by rendering them visible to ‘the system’ and leading to imprisonment and/or deportation.”