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Review Article
International comparatives of healthcare options for undocumented immigrants
1 VA Boston Healthcare System, 1400 VFW Parkway, West Roxbury, MA, 02132, USA
Address correspondence to:
Gentian Kristo
MD, MPH, FACS, VA Boston Healthcare System, 1400 VFW Parkway, West Roxbury, MA, 02132,
USA
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Article ID: 100022P16JL2019
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How to cite this article
Muñoz-Largacha J, Kristo G. International comparatives of healthcare options for undocumented immigrants. Edorium J Public Health 2019;6:100022P16JL2019.ABSTRACT
There are many country-specific differences and deficiencies with regards to the healthcare access for the undocumented immigrants: while in the US even emergency care cannot be accessed for free, in the European Union countries the human right to adequate healthcare servicesis translated only to emergency care for life-threating conditions, and treatment of infectious diseases that would be hazardous for their national populations. Even more restrictive is the policy for the undocumented immigrant healthcare in Japan where they are not even granted access to emergency services. In Australia the human rights of the undocumented immigrants are ignored as they face mandatory and indefinite detention in centers with scarce healthcare resources that cannot meet their needs. Thailand is the only country in the world that provides all undocumented immigrants with full access to the national healthcare systemwithout any administrative discriminatory steps. Healthcare access for undocumented immigrants is at the intersection of many other challenges brought up by immigration. As such, a proper healthcare policy can only be achieved as part of an overall fair immigration system.
Keywords: Healthcare access, Human rights, Immigration policy, Undocumented immigrants
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Author Contributions
Juan Muñoz-Largacha - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Acquisition of data, Analysis of data, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published
Gentian Kristo - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Acquisition of data, Analysis of data, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published
Guaranter of SubmissionThe corresponding author is the guarantor of submission.
Source of SupportNone
Data AvailabilityAll relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Conflict of InterestAuthors declare no conflict of interest.
Copyright© 2019 Gentian Kristo et al. This article is distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original author(s) and original publisher are properly credited. Please see the copyright policy on the journal website for more information.
