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A picture is worth a thousand words
Media Watch
Sarah grew up in South Africa. When she was 18 years old she was raped by a man who wanted to fix her because she was attracted to women. Sarah contracted HIV. Wanting to escape her situation, and thinking she had only months to live, she moved to England in January, 2005. She was refused HIV treatment through the National Health Service (NHS) and had a mental breakdown. She went into a psychiatric hospital, but without official status she was quickly discharged without medication or support. At this point, Sarah discovered the Doctors of the World clinic in Bethnal Green, London, UK. She was seen by a volunteer doctor, helped to register with a general practitioner, and referred for counselling therapy and HIV treatment. Sarah’s story was one of ten told at Undocumented: healthcare for the hidden, a photography exhibition that marked the 10th anniversary of the charity’s pioneering east London clinic. With ten sets of portraits of migrants, refugees, and volunteers who have attended or worked at the clinic in the past 10 years, the exhibition told the remarkable stories of how the clinic has empowered people like Sarah to claim their right to health care. The idea for the exhibition came from the successful Prints for Refugees, a website where photographers sell their work to raise funds for Doctors of the World and its work providing medical aid to refugees across Europe. The exhibition featured the work of eight well-known photographers, including Julian Anderson, Toby Coulson, Katie Peters, and creator of Prints for Refugees Mark Sherratt. As well as humanising some of the thousands of people the Bethnal Green clinic has helped since opening, the portraits highlighted how Doctors of the World has filled, and continues to fill, a worrying gap in the UK health system. Although everybody living in the UK is entitled to free primary health care, in reality, vulnerable refugees and migrants often face substantial barriers— from being wrongly turned away because of immigration status, absence of identification or proof of address, to being simply too frightened to seek care for fear of being reported or charged for services. Leigh Daynes, executive director of Doctors of the World explains: “10 years on, our Bethnal Green clinic is needed now more than ever as successive governments make it harder for vulnerable, destitute migrants to get the health care they are entitled to”. Since 2006, the number of people attending the clinic has tripled. For Jean Lambert, a Green Party member of the European parliament for London and Green Party migration spokesperson, it is deeply concerning that many of the people attending the London clinic have www.thelancet.com/infection Vol 16 November 2016
an existing entitlement to health care but have been turned away from NHS services. Speaking with The Lancet Infectious Diseases, she said: “It is clearly the responsibility of governments to ensure that human rights are upheld and that vulnerable people receive health care on the basis of need; this also makes sense in terms of general public health policy”. She believes that there is an argument for trusted civil society bodies to provide the bridge between public services and vulnerable or excluded people, but that this should not be on an adhoc charitable basis but be part of a wider public service provision. UK programme manager for Doctors of the World Lucy Jones suggests that when it comes to providing health care for refugees and undocumented migrants, the UK could learn from other European countries: “As part of a European network, we see lots of differences in entitlement to access health care for migrants. Currently, most other European countries allow undocumented migrants to access free care through emergency departments and many exclude pregnant women and children from charges; we would urge the Government to implement this as a minimum standard here in the UK” she commented. Jones points to Sweden, where more restrictive access arrangements were introduced but the governments subsequently reversed the decision because they were unworkable, and exclusion of migrants from health care and screening created numerous health risks. A valuable resource that should be used to assist the development of just and fair immigration policies across Europe is the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), a non-governmental organisation funded by the European Union to study different policies at the national level. Since 2001, the organisation has played a key role in raising the profile of undocumented migrants in Europe. Just like the picture of Alan Kurdi did last year, Undocumented: healthcare for the hidden achieved what so many news stories and international reports fail to— it gave faces and stories to people who are often viewed as a number or a statistic. The exhibition showed these people’s plight and dignity, and their ability to transform their own lives. Daynes also hoped it would serve as a reminder of the “lasting effect of acts of compassion wrought in pursuit of social justice”. Put simply by Sarah on recalling her visit to the Bethnal Green clinic: “for the first time I was treated like a human being; I wasn’t judged, their concern was my wellbeing and my health.”
Mark Sherratt
Exhibition A picture is worth a thousand words
Undocumented: healthcare for the hidden Four Corners Gallery, London, UK Sept 7–10, 2016 For more on Doctors of the World see https://www. doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/ For more on Prints for Refugees see http://www. printsforrefugees.com/ For more on PICUM see http://picum.org/en/
Natalie Harrison 1235
Sarah grew up in South Africa. When she was 18 years old she was raped by a man who wanted to fix her because she was attracted to women. Sarah contracted HIV. Wanting to escape her situation, and thinking she had only months to live, she moved to England in January, 2005. She was refused HIV treatment through the National Health Service (NHS) and had a mental breakdown. She went into a psychiatric hospital, but without official status she was quickly discharged without medication or support. At this point, Sarah discovered the Doctors of the World clinic in Bethnal Green, London, UK. She was seen by a volunteer doctor, helped to register with a general practitioner, and referred for counselling therapy and HIV treatment. Sarah’s story was one of ten told at Undocumented: healthcare for the hidden, a photography exhibition that marked the 10th anniversary of the charity’s pioneering east London clinic. With ten sets of portraits of migrants, refugees, and volunteers who have attended or worked at the clinic in the past 10 years, the exhibition told the remarkable stories of how the clinic has empowered people like Sarah to claim their right to health care. The idea for the exhibition came from the successful Prints for Refugees, a website where photographers sell their work to raise funds for Doctors of the World and its work providing medical aid to refugees across Europe. The exhibition featured the work of eight well-known photographers, including Julian Anderson, Toby Coulson, Katie Peters, and creator of Prints for Refugees Mark Sherratt. As well as humanising some of the thousands of people the Bethnal Green clinic has helped since opening, the portraits highlighted how Doctors of the World has filled, and continues to fill, a worrying gap in the UK health system. Although everybody living in the UK is entitled to free primary health care, in reality, vulnerable refugees and migrants often face substantial barriers— from being wrongly turned away because of immigration status, absence of identification or proof of address, to being simply too frightened to seek care for fear of being reported or charged for services. Leigh Daynes, executive director of Doctors of the World explains: “10 years on, our Bethnal Green clinic is needed now more than ever as successive governments make it harder for vulnerable, destitute migrants to get the health care they are entitled to”. Since 2006, the number of people attending the clinic has tripled. For Jean Lambert, a Green Party member of the European parliament for London and Green Party migration spokesperson, it is deeply concerning that many of the people attending the London clinic have www.thelancet.com/infection Vol 16 November 2016
an existing entitlement to health care but have been turned away from NHS services. Speaking with The Lancet Infectious Diseases, she said: “It is clearly the responsibility of governments to ensure that human rights are upheld and that vulnerable people receive health care on the basis of need; this also makes sense in terms of general public health policy”. She believes that there is an argument for trusted civil society bodies to provide the bridge between public services and vulnerable or excluded people, but that this should not be on an adhoc charitable basis but be part of a wider public service provision. UK programme manager for Doctors of the World Lucy Jones suggests that when it comes to providing health care for refugees and undocumented migrants, the UK could learn from other European countries: “As part of a European network, we see lots of differences in entitlement to access health care for migrants. Currently, most other European countries allow undocumented migrants to access free care through emergency departments and many exclude pregnant women and children from charges; we would urge the Government to implement this as a minimum standard here in the UK” she commented. Jones points to Sweden, where more restrictive access arrangements were introduced but the governments subsequently reversed the decision because they were unworkable, and exclusion of migrants from health care and screening created numerous health risks. A valuable resource that should be used to assist the development of just and fair immigration policies across Europe is the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), a non-governmental organisation funded by the European Union to study different policies at the national level. Since 2001, the organisation has played a key role in raising the profile of undocumented migrants in Europe. Just like the picture of Alan Kurdi did last year, Undocumented: healthcare for the hidden achieved what so many news stories and international reports fail to— it gave faces and stories to people who are often viewed as a number or a statistic. The exhibition showed these people’s plight and dignity, and their ability to transform their own lives. Daynes also hoped it would serve as a reminder of the “lasting effect of acts of compassion wrought in pursuit of social justice”. Put simply by Sarah on recalling her visit to the Bethnal Green clinic: “for the first time I was treated like a human being; I wasn’t judged, their concern was my wellbeing and my health.”
Mark Sherratt
Exhibition A picture is worth a thousand words
Undocumented: healthcare for the hidden Four Corners Gallery, London, UK Sept 7–10, 2016 For more on Doctors of the World see https://www. doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/ For more on Prints for Refugees see http://www. printsforrefugees.com/ For more on PICUM see http://picum.org/en/
Natalie Harrison 1235