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.

(My post for Bloggers Unite for Human Rights)

Today, bloggers all over the world are joining together to blog for human rights. And there is certainly no shortage of subjects to chose from when it comes to this issue - there are huge human rights problems in the world today. But today I’ve decided to keep blogging about an issue closer to (my) home: the treatment of undocumented migrants in Sweden when it comes to health care. For background information, you should read this post from a few days ago.

PICUM, the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, wrote in their report “Access to health care for undocumented migrants in Europe” (2007):

The absolute lack of entitlements as well as the inexistence of any publicly funded reimbursement scheme to cover expenses incurred by hospitals for providing health care to undocumented migrants has led to numerous and serious consequences for undocumented migrants’ health. Similarly, it has put enormous pressure on health care providers and civil society organizations. Undocumented migrants constitute one of the most vulnerable groups in Sweden and failure by the Swedish government to recognize their presence and their very basic health needs contributes largely to their stigmatization and discrimination. Very few undocumented migrants attempt to approach health services in Sweden and most of them find numerous barriers against accessing appropriate health care. In the framework of a survey conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières in Stockholm from July to September 2005, 82% of undocumented migrants who had sought health care reported to have encountered barriers against access. They reported barriers such as being turned away by administrative staff at health care centers as well as indirect obstacles like the high costs of consultations and medication, the feeling that they were not entitled to access health care and the fear of approaching the services and being reported to the authorities.

The whole report in pdf-format is available at PICUM’s website.

According to Tobias Billström, Sweden’s minister for migration, the proposed new legislation seeks to address the issue of lack of regulation of health care rights for asylums seekers. In a reply to Maceij Zaremba’s article (referenced in the post a few days ago), he writes that the new legislation won’t limit the rights to health care to undocumented or “hidden” migrants and refugees any more than it does today: they will still be able to receive immediate and emergency care. (What he fails to mention is that they have to pay full price for that care.)

To formalize and regulate what rights asylum seekers have is all fine and well, but after that Billström’s reasoning starts to get really shady. It becomes all too clear that the government really wants to send a signal, and that being refused health care is seen as a proper punishment for being in the country without the correct papers. He writes (my translation):

It is not so easy as to say that everyone, no matter if they have the right to be in Sweden or not, should have the same rights. The person who comes here as an asylum seeker but is denied asylum after a due process shall return to their home country. 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?

Maceij Zaremba puts is perfectly in his reply, where he writes:

I don’t know if it is populism or ingenuousness that guides his pencil when he asks why those who doesn’t obey the law should have the same rights as the law-abiding. Doesn’t he know that in two areas (health care and judicature), blind equal treatment is necessary for our view of humans not to go rotten. Or does he mean that those who cheat on their taxes forfeit their right to a fair trial?

The example isn’t mine, but UN special rapporteur Paul Hunt’s, who tried to teach the government the principal difference between the right to housing allowance and the right to health and justice. If the latter are conditional, then democracy is corrupted.

(emphasis mine)

That my government wants to sort people at the hospital entrance is shameful. Even more shameful is that they expect the doctors and nurses to stand there at the door and send those not worthy away. When someone without the correct paperwork comes in to a health care clinic, my government expects the doctors and nurses to betray their profession and the medical ethics, and show them the door. Luckily, the medical community is fighting back. In the face of a law which expects them to break UN conventions and their medical oaths, medical personnel and health care civil servants are coming up with new and creative ways to ensure that undocumented migrants and hidden refugees are given access to a most basic human right: the right to life and health. And that right, Tobias Billström, cannot be forfeited by being here without the correct papers.

More information in Swedish:
Rätt till vård-initiativet
Vård för alla
The Facebook group Rätt till vård had about 30 members when I joined after reading Zaremba’s article May 11th. Now there are more than 2000 members! On Sunday May 18th at 2pm there is a protest outside the parliament building in Stockholm in support of equal right to health care. Read more here.

I have a new article up on Amnesty Sweden’s website.

Steven Miles, M.D. works at the University of Minnesota and has written the book Oath Betrayed - torture, medical complicity and the war on terror about how medical personnel has been involved in torture and other human rights violations in the so called “war on terrorism”. My article is based on a lecture that Miles did in Stockholm in April. A shorter version of the article is also published in the new issue of Amnesty Press (#2/08).

(In that issue, there is more from me: a report from Amnesty Sweden’s general meeting 2008 and a book review of Catrin Ormestad’s Gaza - en kärlekshistoria - a highly recommended book!)

In Northern Ireland, four main political parties have managed to come together and actually agree on something. Unfortunately, it’s not on a good thing: they want to keep abortions extremely restricted. Today, women in Northern Ireland have no right to an abortion even if they are pregnant as a result of rape or incest. Abortion is only allowed in case of severe fetal abnormalities or a clear threat to the woman’s life. Some abortions are still done in Northern Ireland at the discretion of the doctor, but otherwise women are forced to go elsewhere in the UK or Europe to get the procedure and pay for it in private, which thousands also do. But this of course means that women without the financial resources (to obtain an abortion in the UK costs about £1,000) are left in an extremely difficult situation. It is reported that 11% of GPs in Northern Ireland have seen attempts by women to perform amateur abortions on themselves.

Now, there are attempts to extend the 1967 Abortion Act, so that it will finally apply to Northern Ireland as well. But the political parties the DUP, Sinn Féin, the UUP and the SDLP don’t want that, and for the first time they have overcome their political differences and agreed on a major issue: women in Northern Ireland should not have the same rights as women elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Read Laura Canning’s column on this issue over at the Guardian’s “Comment is free”.

I don’t think I have any readers in the UK, but if you happen to be a British citizen and support equal reproductive rights for women in N.I., go to Pro-Choice Northern Ireland and learn what you can do.

(I guess this post means I’ve sunk even deeper into the “Culture of Death”. I am, however, in good company: read this great column by George Monbiot!).

Usually I’m glad to be Swedish. Not proud, because I don’t understand why I should be proud of a coincidence, but yeah, glad. And we have a pretty good reputation around the world. It’s the inheritance of the Olof Palme years - that solidarity with the poor, the oppressed, the hungry and the exploited. Many still view Sweden as a country which stands for those values.

And among our own population, many still believe that we are the good-hearted, although they don’t see it as a good thing. “We can’t take care of everyone!” they whine. But those of us who are based in reality, we know that we aren’t taking care of everyone. We aren’t even taking care of those who we are obliged to take care of.

But for those who still lives with the delusion that Sweden is a compassionate country who cares about the less fortunate, we are getting ready to “send out new signals” and take that belief out of them. This is one of those times when I’m not happy to be Swedish. I’m ashamed and sad.

The subject is health care for asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. New proposed legislation says that the only health care they have a right to is emergency treatment, maternal care, abortion care and contraceptive advice. (Unless they are under 18, in which case they have the same rights as Swedish citizens does). And even if they have a “right” to this health care, they still have to pay full price for it: a delivery will cost 21.000 SEK, a broken leg 63.000. In the future, your rights as a patient will depend on what criteria you fulfill. Some will be able to get maternal care, some don’t. If you fall under paragraph four you will get your heart medication, otherwise you’re on your own.

Maciej Zaremba writes about this shameful legislation in today’s Dagens Nyheter. It’s a long article, and for once, I’m completely with him - every single word along the way. A piece (my translation):

In August 1920, my father stood in a tent outside Warsaw. He stitched abdomens together, applied bandages and amputated legs. Narcosis was unheard of, so both doctors and patients had to do with alcohol. The summer was hot, flies were feasting in the open wounds, corpses turned black before they were buried.
It was, you need to say, horrible sights. But in one respect less offensive than what is going on in Rosenbad*.
Most of the bodies that my father tended to were illegally in the country. They had neither visa, nor the four digits**. Soldiers in an invading army are as undocumented as anyone can be. But they were tended to in the same way as those people that they had just tried to kill.
Because for a doctor, meant my father, there are no fellow countrymen or enemies, legals or illegals. There are only patients.

That is the principle that minister for migration Tobias Billström now wants to change. It is impractical, according to Billström. “Sends the wrong signals”, he has said. By which he means that if a pregnant Iranian who has been denied asylum are given maternal care, she will immediately start to think that she is welcome to Sweden. Wrong signal! But if she is denied help and has a miscarriage, the voice of Sweden will sound clearly. Won’t be able to misunderstand. Same thing with a hidden Afghan who will see his cancer grow freely. The tumour becomes the right signal: that a no from the Migration Board really is a no.

Read read read!

Sweden is, together with Austria, the worst offender in Europe when it comes to equal treatment in health care. This according to PICUM, The Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants. No other countries have come up with the idea of using illness and injuries as a political signal, of thinking that sickness and maybe death is a proper punishment for failing to adhere to the authorities’ request that you should leave the country.

But there is opposition. To treat people differently depending on their legal status is not in adherence with the medical oath, and the Swedish Association of Health Professionals have said that their members will act according to the UN Convention: they will do their job no matter what background the patient has. A spokesperson for the Swedish Medical Association has called the law “disgraceful” and states that doctors won’t be able to adhere to it. And Region Skåne (the region in southern Sweden) decided almost unanimously (only xenophobic party Sverigedemokraterna were against) that asylum seekers who are hiding and other undocumented/uninsured patients have a right to health care, no matter their ability to pay for it.

The “Right to health care“-initiative is started by a large number of organizations who thinks that Sweden shouldn’t break the human rights conventions that we have signed by denying health care to undocumented immigrants.
There is also a Facebook group for the initiative (requires login).

The proposed law is supported by the Moderates, the Social Democrats and the Center Party. The Left Party and the Greens are against it, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals are undecided. On the regional/local level, Sverigedemokraterna (populist xenophobes) are of course for it - they also think that undocumented children should be denied health care, unless they have some contagious disease that could affect a real Swede.

If this goes through, it shatters the last shivering remains of the image of Sweden as a just society, where people are of equal value. But what does that matter, as long as we are sending out strong signals, right?

It’s truly sickening. Luckily, I’m a citizen with all my papers in order, so I can go see a doctor for my nausea.

*The Swedish government building in Stockholm.
** The four unique digits in the personal number given to every Swedish citizen.

Via incoming links in my Wordpress blog stats I find that I have been linked to on a recent post at Birth Pangs. The writer April Reign shows us a letter written by a man named Michael who has compiled a list of bloggers who has written about the “Pill Kills”-campaign. And I, through my little post here, have made that list!

We who think that the campaign is ridiculous BS are called “Culture of Death bloggers”. And this is apparently just the “short list”. Gee guys, it’s such an honor to be nominated!

I reprint Michael’s letter below - yeah, I normally don’t want to give shit as this any attention, but I’ll do it this time - with the links to all my fellow “culture of death” bloggers.* Keep up the good work people!

Dear pro-life friends,

As many of you already know, American Life League is launching a campaign to inform the public about the abortifacient nature of oral contraceptives. (If you don’t already know about it, please take a moment to check out www.ThePillKills.com . Also, be sure to join our facebook page and invite your friends! www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=34501835075 ) Some of you have blogged about it, and we’re gearing up for a full-court press on this initiative.
But we need your help!
In just 2 days, “pro-choice” bloggers have filled the blogosphere with their vitriol and Culture of Death rhetoric. In fact, one blogger went so far as to state his hatred for babies, while a comment on another blog indicated a desire to show up to a designated protest area to “mess with” us.
Just to give you a sampling of who is saying what, I am sending you a “short” list of Culture of Death bloggers talking about The Pill Kills website. I don’t recommend wasting too much time reading their nonsense, but it is worth noting their overt hostility to anything that “just might” change their worldview of “promiscuity-made-safe.”
We present information. They present virtiol. Why is that? Makes one wonder what they’re so angry about!
Your voice is louder than theirs because you have the Truth! So let’s fill the blogosphere with the Truth! Send e-mails. Tell your friends. Post The Pill Kills button on your blogs! Do whatever it takes … just don’t let them silence our voice for those who don’t have one.
As always, thanks for everything you do for the pro-life cause. Our efforts would be a lot harder without yours!
–Michael

The Graduate
Birth Pangs
Medical-news-now.com
Citizen Girl
Melanie’s blog of good stuff
Signs of the times
Paging Lucina
Ms Magazine
Feministing
I’m A Feminist
Robotic squidling
Hangofwednesday
Church gal
Debate politics
Majikthise
Ravings of a semi-sane madwoman
Jenny’s Pennies LOOK, HERE I AM!
Matthew Yglesias
Tar hearted
Dark side of the mom
Power up
Overclocked drama
ifeminists
Eccentric bitch
Broken rubbers
Childfree hardcore
CelticBear’s musings
Feminist.org
Ginandkerosene’s blog
Items of interest
Feminocracy
The W.O.M.B.
Slog - the Stranger
Dead racists society
Lab Kat
Democratic underground

PS. sorry about the scattered posting lately, still feeling a bit off. Must be all that promotion of death and mayhem.

*Hyperlinked, cause my layout got completely messed up by those long URLs.

So I read a lot of blogs from the US of A (the progressive/feminist/queer variety) and if I were to write about every wackiness I find out about through them, I wouldn’t do much else, so I do stop myself most of the time. But sometimes I run across something so mind-boggling that I just need to blog it.

It’s the “the Pill Kills Babies”-campaign, organized by the American Life League, along with Pro-Life Wisconsin and Pharmacists for Life International (that last organization should really be renamed “pharmacists that don’t do their goddamned job and should have their ass fired”). They want to ban birth control. Because it causes abortion. You see, when I take my BC pills I potentially kill a tiny baby boy or a tiny baby girl. Yes, that’s how they put it.

The so-called science that “supports” their BS can be debunked by picking up a high school biology textbook. What do they think? That a fertilized but not yet implanted egg is a teeny weeny miniature person that, when looked at in a microscope, will smile at you and wave?

At least this campaign makes it painfully clear that the so called pro-life movement isn’t about saving the precious baaaaybeeez at all, it’s about controlling women’s sexuality, and subsequently our lives. The protest the pill-day is June 7th. The reason for this is (from the Pill Kills website. Won’t link, Google is your friend):

June 7 marks the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut. This was the first of many decisions that led to the culture of death we live in today.

On that day in 1965, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Griswold v. Connecticut case, it set a legal precedent for claiming that the Constitution grants women the right to privacy in matters of sexual practice.

Oh the horror! The right to privacy for women in matters of sexual practice, we certainly can’t have that! I file this under reason 17,314 (or possibly 17,315, I lost count) why I’m happy to live in Sweden. I stand firmly behind my American sisters in their fight against this, and I’m sure some pretty awesome counter-activism will be done on June 7th.

Via; more here.

(If you don’t get the headline reference, you lose, but thanks for playing)

A 23 year old man hung himself in a bathroom in the jail in Mariestad. When the personnel found the man, they left him hanging there, locked the door and then called an ambulance. The paramedics managed to restore cardiac activity, but the man died two days later in a hospital. During the nine minutes that it took for the ambulance to arrive, the jail personnel did nothing, they merely let the man hang.

What the hell were they thinking? That he would escape? That someone else would try to save him (and that would be a bad thing)? That it wasn’t their job to do anything about it? That he obviously wanted to kill himself, so they did him a service by leaving him there? That only trained medical personnel would be able to take him down? The incompetence and negligence is so frightening.

This is only the latest of a series of examples of how bad our correctional treatment system is working. Only in the last few days, it was exposed that in 2005, a seriously ill man with pneumonia were left to slowly die in a jail cell in Nyköping. The guards thought that the man had drug abstinence so they did nothing about it, although several doctors say that his symptoms were nothing like those typically associated with abstinence. They guards documented the man’s condition in a protocol, but they didn’t care enough to call a doctor and explain the symptoms, or to take him to a hospital.

Both these men could be alive today had the personnel done their job properly. And the main responsibility lies with the director-general of the Swedish Prisons and Probations Administration, Lars Nylén. Some of his staff is clearly untrained on what to do in an emergency; the policies and protocols on how to handle suicide attempts, ill detainees and other such situation are clearly lacking or not communicated down to the personnel; and some personnel seems to have a frightening disregard for human life, which means they are unfit for their job. Or maybe they though that this was a proper punishment for the jailed person, in which case they are also unfit for their job.

Media: SvD, HD, Sydsvenskan, SR Ekot
Fellow bloggers: Jinge

People who say that if we outlaw abortion, it just goes away and a lot of lives are saved, should really, really read this:

Figures show that 10,000 women die every year in Nigeria from unsafe abortions, carried out by untrained people in unsanitary conditions.

That is 27 deaths every day.

According to the US-based Guttmacher Institute, that is one sixth of the total number of women who die worldwide from such procedures.

In Nigeria abortion is illegal unless the life of the woman would be at risk if she were to give birth.

But the Guttmacher Institute estimates that more than 456,000 unsafe abortions are done in Nigeria every year.

Some women go to traditional healers to terminate their pregnancies.

Methods include trying to break the amniotic sack inside the womb with a sharp stick. This causes infection and in extreme cases the tissue inside the body can start to die.

“They’re pulling out intestines,” says gynaecologist Dr Ejike Oji, of Ipas, an international organisation working to secure reproductive rights for women.

Another method is to pump a toxic mixture of fiercely hot Alligator chilli peppers and chemicals like alum into their bodies.

“The women go into toxic shock and die,” Dr Oji said.

Pro-life my ass.

Via Feministe.

I often wish I knew more about the law and legal matters. Because then I could understand things like this:

A pregnant teenager detained in jail only to make sure she’ll testify in court this week, according to her lawyer, is due to deliver any minute.
Noelly Mowatt, 19, who is not facing any criminal charges, and has been living in a jail cell at Vanier Women’s Centre in Milton since she was denied bail last Thursday, is worried the stress of her surroundings is affecting her health.
Expected to give birth to her second child April 15, Mowatt won’t be let out of prison until after she testifies at the April 11 assault trial of her boyfriend Christopher Harbin.
Harbin is charged with eight offences, including assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and breaching probation.
“She’s contracted the flu since she’s been in jail. She already had to seek medical attention,” defence lawyer Lydia Riva said yesterday. “She’s obviously stressed out and concerned about her pregnancy. She’s afraid to have her baby in custody.”
On March 20, a judge issued a material warrant for Mowatt’s arrest when she wasn’t in court for Harbin’s trial.
Riva said a judge can issue such a warrant if there is evidence someone won’t respond to a subpoena or is evading subpoena.
The Crown argued that after Mowatt called police in December to report that Harbin was abusing her, she refused to pick up her summons to appear at trial.

(From Canadian newspaper TheStar.com)

So, do I get this right:
The pregnant 19 year old, due to deliver any time now, is not facing any criminal charges but is detained solely to make sure she testifies against her boyfriend, who is on trial for abusing her? As I said, I’m not versed on the workings of the law, especially in Canada, but this seems too fucked up for me. Can you imagine being confined to a jail cell knowing that you basically can go into labour any minute (the expected delivery date is four days after the trial, but since when are babies always on the clock?), and to add to that stress, the reason you are in that cell is to make sure that you will testify against the man who has abused you. I understand that it’s important to make sure witnesses appear, but this just seems… cruel and unnecessary.