Italy: Asylum and immigration (1)
01 January 1991
Italy: Asylum and immigration
artdoc November=1995
Immigrants and health care
Access to health care denied immigrant workers
Senzaconfine says that about 76,000 regular documented immigrant
workers, on unemployment registers as job-seekers, are being
struck off the registers of health units and being denied the
right to treatment, owing to the failure of the previous
government to renew a law that guaranteed such rights. The last
government also rejected proposals to provide health care to
undocumented workers on the grounds that they were "excluded, by
definition, from any form of protection" (II Manifesto 17.1.95).
In Turin, abortion clinics are demanding documents and
reporting clients who are "illegals" to the police for expulsion
(II Manifesto 31.1.95).
Death of pregnant Ghanaian woman marginalised from medical
treatment
A pregnant Ghanaian woman, married to a perfectly legal Ghanaian
worker, has died because she was too frightened to go to
hospital.
Giorgina Yaboah, who had high blood pressure, feared expulsion
if she went to the hospital in Modena for treatment. Under
Italian law, the spouse of an immigrant worker is barred from
employment for a year (Il Manifesto 26.1.95).
Health practitioner highlights poor immigrant health
The unhealthy environmental conditions in which immigrants are
forced to live account for medical conditions among immigrants,
including respiratory problems, asthma, rheumatism, allergies and
skin diseases, says Salvatore Geraci, author of "Argomenti di
medicine delle migrazioni". Geraci, who has studied the plight
of 80,000 immigrant workers over the past two years, says most
are strong young people who only fall ill due to their unhealthy
environment. Very few cases of leprosy or tropical disease were
reported amongst immigrants (II Manifesto 22.1.95).
Meanwhile, a local newspaper, Il Giomale di Caserta, has
caused panic by claiming that at least 10 per cent of Foreigners
in the Villa Litemo camp are HIV positive and that there have
already been Aids deaths (Il Manifesto 29.1.95).
Asylum-seekers turned back
Amnesty International has taken up the case of 28 Kurds
threatened with expulsion because, according to the authorities,
they failed to ask for refugee status immediately on arrival to
Italy (il Manifesto 21.1.95).
Seven Romany adults and five children, fleeing from Serbia,
were refused entry at the port of Bari on 1 January, after
arriving on a ferry from Bar in the former Yugoslavia. The
Romany families say that they were brought before an Italian
official who claimed to be an immigration officer and who told
them "Gypsies are not allowed to enter Italy". The Romany were
returned by boat to Bar (Romnews, No 28, 2.1.95).
IRR European Race Audit, no 13, April 1995. Contact: Liz Fekete,
Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS.
Tel: 0171 837 0041
upda