BMJ 2000;321:893 ( 7 October )

Letters

Health care for asylum seekers

    Main obstacles are inflexibility of NHS and bureaucracy of support systems
    General practitioners' knowledge of issues relating to asylum seekers is poor
    Germany has better method of dealing with asylum seekers' medical problems

Main obstacles are inflexibility of NHS and bureaucracy of support systems

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---Asylum seekers often receive poor health care, according to the Audit Commision.1 In east Kent we care for many resident asylum seekers and for many more who arrive at the Channel ports and move to accommodation in other parts of the country. Since February 1999 we have tried to meet the medical needs of people from 43 different countries. In our part of Kent there are no trained interpreters, and, indeed, to expect to have an interpreter on hand at a moment's notice for this number of languages is unrealistic. We have found that even commercial telephone translation services are not able to supply some of the languages we require. Despite this, we hope that we are not guilty of offering a poor service. Listening to patients, careful body language, and the use of diagrams and written material (some of which has been translated by the asylum seekers themselves) are . . . [Full text of this article]
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This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Katikireddi, S. V., Bhopal, R., Quickfall, J. A (2004). GPs need training and funding in caring for refugees and asylum seekers. BMJ 328: 770-770 [Full text]  

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