Review: They Make You Sick. Essays on Immigration Controls andHealth
01 September 1998
Review: They Make You Sick. Essays on Immigration Controls and Health, Steve Cohen and Debra Hayes. Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit 48pp, £5.00. The eight short essays in this publication are introduced by an overview of "The Unhealthy History of Immigration Control" which draws attention to the historical context of contemporary arguments for controlling immigration on public health grounds; arguments which were and remain premised on unscientific and generally racist grounds. The stigmatisation of the immigrant as unhealthy, degenerate and more recently, as a threat to public healthcare resources is an important theme of this collection of essays.
Steve Cohen argues that, Bevan never intended to exclude any foreigners from his vision of healthcare free at the point of delivery. However, provisions were made under the 1949 National Health Service Act for charges to be imposed on those using the NHS who were not ordinarily resident in the UK. This early concession to reactionary political opinion and the anti-immigrant lobbies finally led to the issuing, in 1982, of the NHS (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Act, which in turn led to settled black and Asian people being asked for their passports prior to hospital treatment. This raises another important theme of the report; the problem of the implicating healthcare professionals and hospital managers in immigration controls - a practice which is informal and unregulated, yet has become central to the control of immigration on health grounds. As Cohen emphasises throughout the report, doctors should never be involved in the administration of immigration controls.
Other essays in the collection cover issues such as the mental health consequences of immigration control, (particularly as pertaining to those detained under the provisions of immigration legislation); policies regarding HIV/AIDS and immigration control; the problematic notion of "compassionate grounds" for stays of deportation; the incompatibility of medical ethics and immigration control and restriction of access to healthcare due to immigration status in other countries. Thus a number of important issues are raised which are drawn together by an unstinting criticism of the racist notions underpinning control of immigration on health grounds; notions which result in unjust and inhuman treatment of immigrants and in perpetuating the stigmatisation and victimisation of all black and Asian people in this country.
Available from: GMIAU 400 Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester M8 9LE.