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Migrant friendly hospitals European populations are becoming increasingly diverse on several levels, including ethnic origin, cultural background, religious belief, legal status and social situation. This also affects health care and hospitals: people on the move face greater health risks, may suffer from conditions not commonly found in Europe, and have different expectations concerning health services, including utilization patterns. Access to the adequate health care is further complicated by language barriers and migrants' and ethnic minorities' frequently disadvantaged social situation. Health care and health promotion for diverse population present hospitals with new challenges: migrants' health literacy and their knowledge of European health care systems can be limited, and health services are frequently not tailored to accommodate cultural diversity. The increasing diversity of patient populations poses new challenges for hospitals, but it also offers the chance to improve overall service quality and patient orientation. HOPE supported and participated to the European Conference “Hospitals in a culturally diverse Europe“, held in Amsterdam on December 9-11, 2004. The conference was the presentation of the results of two years of pooling European expertise from 12 hospitals in the EU Member States. HOPE with other experts formulated the European Recommendations for culturally adequate hospital services and management strategies for migrant and ethnic minority patients
Nowhereland Estimated 1-5% of the overall population in Europe are undocumented migrants (UDM), living in a NowHereland, where they face extremely precarious and health threatening living conditions. NowHereland is a paradox country: inhabitants are officially not visible, but part of social reality and health care providers have to deal with them in the area of conflict between the basic human right for health care, state control logic and the simple wish to help. Health care organisations and professionals find themselves in a paradox situation: if they give care, they may act against legal and financial regulations, if they don’t give care they violate human rights and exclude the most vulnerable. Also, the status of UDM leads to a paradox situation for people as access to health care may threat their existence - they might get visible to the system and be imprisoned and deported. The paradox cannot be solved on practice level, but has to be managed somehow by different players and organisations. NGOs play an important role in taking over the management of health care provision by providing resources and bridging the gap between policy frameworks and peoples needs. The Task Force on Migrant-friendly Culturally Competent Healthcare of the Health Promoting Hospital and Health Services network (HPH-TF MFCCH) is conducting a cross-European survey as part of the project NowHereLand: Improving services for Undocumented Migrants (UDM) in Europe. The project is coordinated by the Donau Universitat of Krems (Austria) and is financially supported by the European Commission. The major aim of this research is to improve the level of health protection for the people of the EU by addressing migrant access, quality and appropriateness of health services as important wider determinants for health, focusing on health care services for UDM as an especially vulnerable group. Undocumented Migrants (UDM) are third-country nationals without a required permit authorising them to regularly stay in Europe. There are many routes to becoming undocumented, the category includes those who have been unsuccessful in the asylum procedure or violated terms of their visa. The group does not include EU citizens from new member states or migrants who are within the asylum seeking process (unless they have exhausted their asylum process and are thus considered rejected asylum seekers but are not returned to their country of origin). The TF MFCCH is responsible for the work package concerning the collection of health care services available for UDM and for the selection of models of good practices. This collection will serve to establish a database of practices and select 3-5 EU-relevant and contextualized models of good practice of health care services for UDM. The data base will be available for consultation on the website of the NowHereLand project. The services for UDM that we address can be part of an organization belonging to Governmental health trust as well as NGOs, therefore the collection of practices is addressed to hospitals, primary care services, health clinics, specialized services or dedicated service for this specific clients. |
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