Tuesday 3 February 2009

Twisted Logic

As part of the (in)famous Security Law the Italian Government is set to approve this week, is an amendment whereby it will be removed the right the medical personnel now have not to report the status of a patient, if he is an illegal immigrant.

This appears as a subordination of the right to health to the status of citizenship, with the inevitable consequence of marginalising even more the immigrants and putting under serious health risks all those individuals needing treatment but unwilling to be reported. As a consequence a clandestine market of illegal-immigrant care could flourish, clearly characterised by lower standards and higher prices.

Also, on the side of the doctors, a feeling of diffidence and mistrust could end up affecting every doctor-patient relation when the latter is an immigrant and, even if legal, unable to provide the relevant documentation when arriving to the hospital.

This amendment thus threatens to disrupt even more the already torn social fabric of the country, endangering solidarity and trust in a bid to criminalise non-citizens even to the detriment of a basic right such as the right to health.

Paradoxical is the fact that, whilst this law force medical personnel to report illegal immigrants to authority, simultaneously in Italy the same medical personnel is not compelled to provide an array of services (for instance abortion, morning-after pill etc.) which, although perfectly legal, the doctor can decide to deny by professing ‘objection of conscience’. Indeed many hospitals, lacking doctor willing to provide such services, basically cannot fulfil the patient requests, thereby (again) denying his right to health.

Now, this is quite a twisted logic.

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