Jenny’s Pennies

According to our parliament, Swedish doctors are now supposed to put medical ethics aside and be used as a migration political signal system.Today, the parliament voted yes on the new legislation on health care rights for asylum seekers. But the right to health care for undocumented migrants and hidden refugees is not addressed.

Asylum seekers only have the right to emergency care (unless they cough up the whole cost themselves). But those who are in the country without the correct papers and those who have gone into hiding after being denied asylum will continue to be denied equal access to health care. Some of them are lucky enough to live in regions where the administration has said that they will become law breakers and put the medical needs of the individual first. Some of them are lucky enough to get help by the networks of volunteer medical personnel who provide health care to hidden people; in secret and without pay. But all are not so lucky.

Henry Ascher wrote in yesterday’s Dagens Nyheter: medical personnel are now supposed to give care and treatment, not according to the patient’s medical needs, not according to scientifically proven methods, but according to thirteen different “migration status criteria”.

“This is totally unique. Tax evaders, Engla-murderers*, pedophiles, Tv-license evaders, gang leaders and nazis, all have a right to get their medical needs assessed on the same grounds as everybody else. And it has to be that way for the public to have continued trust in us in health care. We manage health care. Other problems are managed by other bodies of society”.

But according to a majority of our parliamentarians, “sending the right signals” is more important than human rights, and doctors and nurses are now supposed to select among those who seek care.

As our minister for migration, Tobias Billström, put it:

The person who has never been interested in applying for asylum but comes to work illegally, hasn’t followed the laws and rules which applies to everyone else in Sweden. Should they then have the same rights as those who follows laws and rules and pays taxes?

I can think of plenty of people who hasn’t “followed the laws and rules which applies to everyone else”, some of them in Billström’s own party. Who’s next in line to be denied their human rights?

Previous posts:
Sickening. I have no other words right now. (May 12th)
Unite for Human Rights: access to health care for undocumented migrants in Sweden (my contribution to the Bloggers Unite for Human Rights event May 15th)

*Engla was a 10 year old girl who was brutally murdered earlier this spring.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 10:41 am and is filed under Health, Human rights, Migration issues, Sweden, Swedish politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.