How can we get healthcare for all?

THE NHS is a universal health service, which everyone can use – right? No. Although most British citizens resident in the UK can use the NHS for free (at the point of use), many people are charged or even excluded – particularly migrants.

The Coronavirus crisis has shown just how important public health is. In other countries, where healthcare is dependent on the ability to pay, the rich have been able to secure good treatment if they fell ill from the virus. But if those rich people cannot keep the poor healthy, they will increase their own chances of catching the virus and becoming ill.

The crisis has also shown us just how much healthcare can be provided if you try. For decades we have been told that there is not enough money to provide enough hospital beds and hospital care must be rationed. Come corona, the army’s out, requisitioning disused buildings and setting up new hospital facilities. Provision is not, it transpires, a question of cost – it’s a measure of political priorities.

Into this scenario come a range of organisations to look at how migrants can access health care despite the “hostile environment”. They are holding a Zoom discussion on Thursday – do register and tune in to listen and learn what you can do to help the various campaigns for universal healthcare for all, free at the point of need.  Your brother’s and your sister’s healthcare is your ticket to staying healthy too!

Healthcare, COVID-19 and the Hostile Environment
Zoom Meeting
7pm, Thursday, 30th July

Speakers
Susan Cueva, Kanlungan Filipino Consortium
– talking about their report A Chance to Feel Safe
Daniel Button, New Economics Foundation
– on the findings of their research Patients Not Passports: Migrants’ Access to Healthcare During the Coronavirus Crisis
Ella Johnson, Doctors of the World
– speaking to their rapid needs assessment An unsafe distance: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on excluded People in England
Daniel Robertson, Notts Refugee Forum
– on his experiences supporting people facing the combined threat of the Hostile Environment and coronavirus
James Skinner, Medact
– talking about the Patients Not Passports campaign and how you can get involved.

Register here: REGISTER

●Read more about it:
Facing up to the new cover-up
“Hostile Environment” threatens access to healthcare