Rapid Responses to:
|
|
Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
-
![[Read Rapid Response]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
Humanitarian aid starts at home
- les ashton (21 October 2006)
|
|
|||
|
les ashton, GENERAL PRACTITIONER ASSIST,Primary care service for Asylum seekers,Leicester,uk
Send response to journal:
|
Humanitarian aid has indeed become more politicised.Humanitarian workers may well need to be the voice to try and reverse this but will only succeed if government or decision makers are willing to listen or be actually held accountable for their decisions. ASSIST is a primary care service delivering primary care services solely for asylum seekers.In the last 12 months there has been a huge upsurge in failed decision asylum seekers within our service (which also is reflected in the national picture).For complex and varied reasons,most of these patients are or will become destitute.They still need health care at all levels despite not being entitled to anything except in extremis because of their failed status.This client group is the most vulnerable layer of our society and are functioning at the lowest level of Maslow's hierachy of need - Yet,they are often the most neglected and ignored. The provision of humanitarian aid to the most needy and how we respond to the most vulnerable must surely be at the core of how we judge our own society.World disaster zone issues certainly seem to dominate our media and invoke a response.Why is is that we cannot invoke such a response on our own doorstop to the equally deserving? Clearly we need to ensure our decision makers are held accountable for a situation that allows such a travesty to continue.Humanitarian workers at home would do well to continue to affirm humanitarian principles ,commit to doing no harm and do everything within their power to raise the profile for such a disempowered and silent client group .Articulating Values begins at home. Competing interests: None declared |
|||