by Amy Taylor
The NHS was set up to provide healthcare based on need not the ability to pay - unless you are a failed asylum seeker that is.
Earlier this week 275 GPs spoke out against the government's plans to deny failed asylum seekers free access to their services. The move comes on the back of charges for hospital care for the group, brought in in April 2004.
Doctors speak out in a letter
In a letter sent to The Independent and The Lancet the doctors speak out against the plans, on which a final decision is expected shortly, warning it is unethical for them to refuse treatment to people who are ill.
(Is it right to deny asylum seekers free access to medical care?)
Charging for hospital care
Care provided in A&E departments and care for communicable diseases that might pose a public health risk are free to failed asylum seekers but all other hospital treatment has to be paid for. Emergency treatment, other than in A&E, will be carried out but asylum seekers will be billed afterwards. For all procedures payment is required up front, making them unobtainable for the vast majority.
The denial of free hospital care has had horrendous consequences for failed asylum seekers, leading to people suffering from cancer, HIV and Aids being refused treatment which they urgently require.
At present failed asylum seekers are only able to see a GP for free if the doctor agrees. If this discretion is removed, and charging introduced, any chances of picking up serious diseases before they worsen, treating conditions before they become an emergency or picking up complications in pregnancies early on will be gone for the group. How can this be right in a society which claims to be humane?
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