Undocumented migrants

Από Greece Wiki

Undocumented migrants

Undocumented migrants in Greece are entitled to very restricted rights. They only have access to hospital emergency rooms for the treatment of life-threatening conditions. The only exception is for foreign patients with HIV or other infectious diseases, who can benefit from free medical care and hospital admission, provided that the appropriate treatment is not available in their country of origin; they are also entitled to temporary stay and work permits (Law 2955/2001).

Limited access to health care affects more seriously those suffering from chronic diseases or need to undergo surgery or other costly treatment. With regards to primary health care access, undocumented migrants are in practice catered at the National Health System’s structures. Health professionals, in practice and often choosing to ignore “the letter of the law”, facilitate the access of undocumented migrants to health care. Many undocumented migrants also seek care at NGO clinics.

Informality has been the basic characteristic of recent immigration to Greece, regarding migrants' legal status and employment, but also their own integration strategies; similarly, informality appears to be the main feature of migrants' pathways of access to the NHS. Thus any policy addressing migrants’ access to care would not alone be enough; there is a need for a coherent migration policy to address the status of undocumented immigrants and rejected asylum seekers and a series of conflicting issues, including labour market regulation to reduce the number of uninsured migrants

Bibliography on undocumented migrants

Newspaper articles on undocumented migrants' health

Organisations for undocumented migrants

See also page on Access to health care