Obstacles in access to care for children

Nathalie Simonnot,Pierre Chauvin

doi:10.1186/1824-7288-41-s2-a66

Abstract

Background Doctors of the World – Medecins du Monde (MdM) provides free frontline medical and social services for people facing barriers to the mainstream healthcare system. Child poverty rate has been soaring since 2008, especially in Spain and Greece. Restrictive laws across Europe often hinder any access to preventive and curative care, including for children whose parents are undocumented migrant (UDM) or lack health coverage. For example, in Germany, civil servants have to denounce children of UDM. In Spain, the legal restrictions on UDM negatively impacts their children rights. In the UK, if one of their parents is not registered at a GP, the children will not be accepted. In Greece, in 2014, around a third of the population has no more health coverage.

Highlights

Doctors of the World – Médecins du Monde (MdM) provides free frontline medical and social services for people facing barriers to the mainstream healthcare system
Materials and methods Data collected by MdM teams with 23,040 people in 25 cities in 10 European countries with the use of common social and medical questionnaires administered during face to face social and medical consultations [1]
Most of the 623 children for whom we have detailed data live in harsh conditions

Summary

Introduction

Doctors of the World – Médecins du Monde (MdM) provides free frontline medical and social services for people facing barriers to the mainstream healthcare system. Materials and methods Data collected by MdM teams with 23,040 people in 25 cities in 10 European countries with the use of common social and medical questionnaires administered during face to face social and medical consultations [1]. Results Most of the 623 children for whom we have detailed data live in harsh conditions (slums, overcrowded and healththreatening housing, or even out in the streets).

Results

Conclusion