There are more than one billion migrants worldwide, with 214 million of them international migrants, both worst affected by the lack of access to health services.
According to a recently issued report of International Organisation for Migrants every country in the world was either dependent on the labour, skills and knowledge migrants bring with them or the heavy amount of remittances sent back home by these workers.
Yet lack of adequate access to health services for migrants in most countries was identified as a worrying public health omission requiring urgent redress in a world increasingly dependent on human mobility.
Lack of affordable health services or health insurance, administrative hurdles, legal status and the fact that migrants often work extremely long and unsocial hours, were cited to be among their key barriers.
Undocumented migrants, often at risk from violence, exploitation, poor living and unsafe working conditions due to their irregular legal status, are the most vulnerable among the migrant groups, said the IOM report.
The fear of deportation also prevents irregular migrants from seeking health assistance unless it is an emergency or too late. Compilers of the report mentioned that there was an acceptance among States to address the health inequities among vulnerable communities in their countries.
They said there was need to include migrants, who unfortunately remain among the most discriminated and vulnerable group in today’s society and who continue to be largely invisible on the global health agenda.
Currently, only a very few countries in the world offer access to health services for all, including irregular migrants. IOM reported identified Argentina, Brazil, France, Portugal and Spain among the countries to have substantially contributed towards healthcare needs of the migrants.
However, despite recent health crises and the re-emergence of diseases such as tuberculosis underlining the urgent necessity of including migrants into health care systems, global progress on the issue remained painfully slow.
