OXFORDSHIRE HEALTH AUTHORITY

The Oxfordshire Health Authority is responsible for commissioning health services for the population of Oxfordshire, a relatively prosperous district of 600,000 people in southern England with a mix of urban and rural areas. It has a relatively high number of asylum seekers and refugees, and presumably also of undocumented migrants.  The main statutory agencies in the county (health, social services, education, police, employment service) have recently developed a Joint Agency Strategy to support asylum seekers and refugees, together with voluntary organisations concerned with the welfare of these groups, and work is underway to implement the many areas of the strategy. The health section (which is currently being revised) covers primary care, secondary care, mental health, communicable disease, health promotion, information and communication, interpreting and advocacy and staff education and training.  

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INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR WAR

IPPNW - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War /Physicians in Social Responsibility - understands itself as a profession bound organisation of the peace movement. The organisation stands for three goals: a world without nuclear threat, a world without war, and a world in social responsibility. In 1984 IPPNW received the UNESCO Peace Prize, in 1985 the Nobel peace prize. The German working group ‘Refugees and Asylum’ has as its main activity the campaign "Residence Title for Traumatized Refugees".

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FORDERVEREIN NIEDERSACHSISCHER FLUCHTLINGSRAT

Förderverein Niedersächsischer Flüchtlingsrat e.V., founded in 1984, is a network and service institution for different groups, organisations and clubs working with refugees. The Flüchtlingsrat participates in different political bodies and in the network ‘Asylum in the Church’ of Lower Saxony. It is also member of the federal working pool Pro Asyl e.V.

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BURO FUR MEDIZINISCHE FLUCHTLNGSHILFE

The Büro für medizinische Flüchtlingshilfe (Bureau for medical aid for refugees) mediates anonymous medical treatment for free for refugees and undocumented migrants twice a week. The bureau is a non-governmental, self organised project within the anti-racist movement. It is independent of any political party and does not receive any state funding. Everyone participating - the mediators in the office, the translators and doctors - works without payment. Additional costs for medication, x-rays, glasses etc. are covered by donated money.

Since the asylum law has been nearly abrogated in 1993, the number of those who do not receive a kind of residence permit has risen, too. That includes also the number of undocumented migrants who do not have any access to medical aid. The bureau has been founded as a reaction to the changed political situation in Germany, with the aim of combining practical solidarity and political work.  

The Bureau for medical aid for refugees understands its work as anti-racist and sees itself as part of the campaign “No One is Illegal” and the ‘Forschungsstelle Flucht und Migration’. They also have a loose cooperation with other initiatives. The people working in the bureau share the opinion that every human being must be allowed to choose freely where to live and work. Apart from the mediation of ill people, they also take part in various actions against governmental discrimination of foreigners (discrimination of foreigners by national or local authorities) and against racist thinking and acting of the population.  

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JOHANNES WIER FOUNDATION

The Johannes Wier Foundation was established in the Netherlands 1986. Similar initiatives were taken in other countries about the same time. The Foundation is a human rights organisation for physicians, nurses and other health professionals. Each of these professionals has its own specific responsibility in the protection of human rights. The Johannes Wier Foundation provides medical expertise to detect and investigate human rights violations, and promotes research and education in the field of health and human rights. It supports colleagues who encounter problems as a result of their efforts in this field . Furthermore, the Johannes Wier Foundation conducts investigations into the collaboration of health professionals in human rights violations, such as torture, corporal and capital punishment, and its campaigns against these violations.

Collaboration with international sister organisations has been formalised in the International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations (IFHHRO). Countries such as the United States, Israel, Palestine, South Africa, Britain, Denmark and India are associated. Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, the World Medical Association, and the British and Turkish Medical Associations are official observers.

 The Johannes Wier Foundation uses various means to achieve its objectives: education, research missions and reports, conferences and workshops, writing campaigns and lobbying, etc. 

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Health Care Inspectorate of the Netherlands

The Health Care Inspectorate is part of the State Inspectorate of Health, which is an autonomous part of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. The Inspectorate has two main areas of activity in the public health supervisory service: care and protection. It has a central office: the Chief Inspectorate in The Hague, and four regional services. At the central level the inspectors have special expertise in a particular field of health care. The function of the Inspectorate can be summed up as follows: supervision of public health, including care systems and care provided at both individual and collective levels, on the basis of existing legislation; reporting and advising on findings to the authorities and other parties with the aim of improving and protecting public health and the health of the individual.

The tasks and powers of the Inspectorate are laid down in the 1956 Health Act, section 36:

1. Enforcing statutory regulations relating to public health;

2. Advising and informing the Minister and the Director-General of Public Health on matters relating to public health either on request or on its own initiative

Formally the Minister of Health is responsible for the activities of the Inspectorate. However, the Health Act does not describe the relationship between the Minister and the Inspectorate; it suffices with giving the Minister the ‘power to designate’. This means that the Inspectorate is able to conduct its activities rather independently and autonomously.

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PHAROS

PHAROS is a national institute with the general purpose of contributing to the health and well-being (social, mental, and physical) of refugees and asylum seekers. Within this general purpose the main objective is to improve the accessibility of the Dutch health service to refugees and asylum seekers. The major tasks of PHAROS are the support of regular health services and the provision of care.

Main activities of PHAROS are in the first place treatment: refugees and asylum seekers come to PHAROS for special treatment of serious mental problems caused by organised violence or due to acculturation problems. Besides this, PHAROS is continually organising training and education activities, and is collecting and registering data that may be used for research on the health problems of refugees and the evaluation of health care policies. PHAROS also has a documentation department that collects literature, in particular on medical and psychosocial consequences of organised violence, and published numerous books on subjects concerning health and health care for refugees. PHAROS engages also in networking both on the national and the international level.  

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MEDISCH STEUNPUNT MENSEN ZONDER PAPIEREN

The 'Medisch Steunpunt Mensen Zonder Papieren' (Medical Support for Undocumented Migrants) is an organisation that wants to guarantee access to health care for foreigners staying illegally in the region of Brussels. One part of the working of the organisation is centred on case-work (individual counselling of undocumented migrants). Another part of the work of the Medisch Steunpunt is structural action related to access to health care and to obtaining (or maintaining) a residence permit for medical reasons. In this respect it communicates with various action groups, mutual aid associations and other social institutes.  

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MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES / DOCTORS WITHOUT FRONTIERS

Médecins Sans Frontières is a humanitarian NGO providing medical support in more than 80 countries. While MSF is mostly known for its work in developing countries, also in the Western World they are more and more confronted with the consequences of the decline of the social climate, a situation which leads automatically to exclusion. For this reason MSF decided to expand its work area to the groups that have no access to health care infrastructure.

Since October 1991, MSF is organising, in cooperation with ‘Pharmacists without Frontiers’ medical-social consultancies for everybody without access to health care and with difficulties accessing the different systems of social protection (homeless, refugees, undocumented migrants,…).

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INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS

The International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations (IFHHRO) was established as a ‘loose’ network of organisations with similar human rights agendas, upon an initiative of the Johannes Wier Foundation (the Netherlands) and Physicians for Human Rights (USA) in 1989.

The IFHHRO promotes the international cooperation of its affiliated and observer organisations. 

The objectives of the Federation are the protection and promotion of health related human rights, the mobilisation of medical expertise in the investigation of human rights violations, and the protection of health workers seeking the promotion of human rights. The affiliated organisations pursue these goals by means of advocacy, fact-finding missions, research and publications, education and special projects, such as the International Forensic Program, the International Landmine Campaign, the project for the promotion of the appointment of a UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence and Integrity of the Health Professionals, projects on Prison Health, on Medical Neutrality and on Human Rights Education. 

Affiliated organisations have developed expertise on a variety of subjects such as hunger strikes, patient’s rights and psychiatry, health and human rights under political violence.

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