Thread: France: 'Illegal' Immigrants Lose Health Care Under New Law

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France: 'Illegal' Immigrants Lose Health Care Under New Law
PARIS, Aug. 4, 2005 (IPS/GIN) -- The French government's decision to tie medical care to legal status has cut off about 400,000 illegal immigrants from access to treatment.

The government introduced a new law July 29 requiring all immigrants needing medical care to provide evidence first of their legal entry into the country. Besides creating a crisis for illegal immigrants, the new ruling presents also a problem for doctors.

"The government has placed a heavy ethical burden upon us medical personnel," Patrick Pelloux, president of the association of emergency doctors said in a statement. "Instead of simply doing what we doctors take an oath to do, that is, providing medical treatment to ill people, we would have to check their identity papers first."

Francoise Jeanson, president of the humanitarian organization Doctors of the World (MdM, after its French name Medecins du Monde) told IPS that "medical care must be the priority, and administrative controls can only come after treatment. The government believes it has to be the other way around."

Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy said while presenting the law that "the fraud on free medical treatment is unacceptable." But practically all medical associations describe this "fraud" as marginal. "The budget of this treatment does not go above 700 million dollars a year, representing less than 0.5 percent of the total French medical care budget," Jeanson said.

Under the new law immigrants demanding free medical treatment in French public hospitals must first produce evidence of legal residence in France for at least three months. Under the old rules immigrants simply needed to sign a formal declaration about their identity.

The new law which limits free medical treatment to people earning less than 576 euros (690 dollars) a month also says that immigrants' income be estimated from their housing.

"This is completely ridiculous," Christophe Adam, doctor at an MdM center in Bordeaux told IPS. "I have right now three patients from Benin, including a pregnant woman, who actually live in a ruined cellar here. How can I value such accommodation to estimate their income? This law is an aberration."

Act Up, a humanitarian organization supporting AIDS patients says the new law is part of "a vicious campaign against immigrants." The new law is aimed primarily at immigrants suffering from AIDS, or from diseases such as hepatitis and tuberculosis, an Act Up spokesman told IPS.

According to figures revealed by the French monthly AIDS Journal, in 2002, the first year of the present government, 94 percent of immigrants demanding temporary residence permits got them. By 2004, this rate had fallen to 45 percent.

A temporary residence permit is a key document to get access to free medical treatment in an emergency. The permit says free medical treatment is reserved for immigrants whose countries of origin do not have facilities equivalent to those in France.

In order to reduce the number of immigrants benefiting from medical care in France, the government has drawn a list of countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, which it says have a satisfactory level of medical equipment, personnel, and other facilities.

"Actually, what the French government is doing is forcing ill people to return to their countries of origin, despite the lack of treatment there," Patrick Pelloux said.

The consequence of such actions can be lethal, activists say. "We have established that the government is since two years increasingly denying medical care to severely ill people, despite the fact that the pathologies and the access to treatment in the countries of origin has not improved at all," the Medical Committee for Exiled People and Asylum Seekers in said in a statement.

The government is in effect denying identity papers, and then asking immigrants to produce them.

"The government has placed a heavy ethical burden upon us medical personnel," Patrick Pelloux, president of the association of emergency doctors said in a statement. "Instead of simply doing what we doctors take an oath to do, that is, providing medical treatment to ill people, we would have to check their identity papers first."

Vive La France!!

DOCTORS!! Wake up, the last time I checked the hippocractic oath, it didn't say ANYTHING about your getting paid by the government to honor your oath. Pack a black bag, keep some gas in your car, and go treat. You may not get paid, but hey...that was the oath you took, right?

Otherwise, ask for papers and if they don't have them, send them on to immigration authorities who I'm sure will provide assistance while they deport them.

Originally Posted by Judy

"The government has placed a heavy ethical burden upon us medical personnel," Patrick Pelloux, president of the association of emergency doctors said in a statement. "Instead of simply doing what we doctors take an oath to do, that is, providing medical treatment to ill people, we would have to check their identity papers first."

Vive La France!!

DOCTORS!! Wake up, the last time I checked the hippocractic oath, it didn't say ANYTHING about your getting paid by the government to honor your oath. Pack a black bag, keep some gas in your car, and go treat. You may not get paid, but hey...that was the oath you took, right?

Otherwise, ask for papers and if they don't have them, send them on to immigration authorities who I'm sure will provide assistance while they deport them.

Yeah if we was in Mexico, do you think that there hospitals would treat us. Well not at all they would treat us right to the door. I know that is what happens in most country's if you don't have cash or going to some hospital that excepts (SOS) That is a travels insurance and not Save our State. you simply not going to be treated.