To be ill and a foreigner in health care institutions

Abstract

The majority of the people from foreign countries who search for help in the national health system are living in poverty and come from the rural areas near the mediterranean sea. They are here either as refugees for political reasons or because they are looking for work. Thus they have come to meet accultural processes of different sizes. In a subjective way they react to a failed acculturation by showing off a ruined self-confidence and a false motivation. Their situation towards the national health system is defined by various factors: 1. Original culture influence, 2. Ruined self-confidence and they are therefore prone to health defects, 3. Special form of symptom (pathoplastic), 4. Changed department to institutional things. In comparison with that the cultural situation of the institute's staff shows characteristic symptoms of life in a modern capitalistic society--which appears normal to them. If we compared their situation with the one of the migrants--always keeping the theory of cultural relativism in mind--we have to consider this relation as highly problematic. This lecture wants to critically illustrate the global comparison between the two basic positions of the migrants and the staff working for health institutions and draw conclusions.