Tactics employed by healthcare providers in the humanitarian sector to meet the sexual and reproductive healthcare needs of undocumented migrant women in Denmark: A qualitative study

Abstract

ObjectivesTo explore the tactics adopted by healthcare providers in the humanitarian aid sector to meet the sexual and reproductive healthcare needs of undocumented immigrant women whose entitlements in the Danish national health services are restricted to emergency care only. MethodsWe conducted six semi-structured interviews between January 2020 and April 2020 with healthcare providers working across four health centers providing sexual and reproductive healthcare to undocumented migrants in Copenhagen. The interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed and subjected to a thematic network analysis. ResultsHealthcare providers adopted a number of tactics tomeet the SRH needs of undocumented women. They used their position as volunteers to gain women’s trust, drew on personal networks in the public healthcare sector, accompanied women to public hospitals, worked with professionals from the migrant communities, and promoted secondary prevention using their cultural knowledge to respond to the SRH needs of undocumented women. Results highlight that while “informal” settings enable these flexible tactics, fully meeting the SRH needs of undocumented migrants is negatively affected by their limited entitlements to public healthcare. ConclusionThese tactics demonstrated the efforts of healthcare providers to use the NGO space to try to achieve SRH of undocumented women in a restrictive public healthcare sector. Nonetheless, these tactics, particularly the use of personal networks, did not always result in undocumented migrants having their SRH needs met, particularly in cases of serious illness, demonstrating a concerning gap in care.