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health checks for immigrants
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3121783.stm
The UK is "building up a frightening level of hidden illness" and compulsory screening is essential to prevent them being brought into the country, said shadow health secretary Liam Fox.
It would also stop people coming to Britain simply for free health care, draining the resources of the NHS, he said.
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I think this could be useful if done properly. I mean the government has a duty to stop the spread of viruses.
I don't think there is any reason not give Asylum seekers at least a proper health check. But would this work? Is it "unnecessary, extremist, unethical and unworkable". Would the government have the bottle to do it even it they thought it was a good idea?
The UK is "building up a frightening level of hidden illness" and compulsory screening is essential to prevent them being brought into the country, said shadow health secretary Liam Fox.
It would also stop people coming to Britain simply for free health care, draining the resources of the NHS, he said.
-
I think this could be useful if done properly. I mean the government has a duty to stop the spread of viruses.
I don't think there is any reason not give Asylum seekers at least a proper health check. But would this work? Is it "unnecessary, extremist, unethical and unworkable". Would the government have the bottle to do it even it they thought it was a good idea?
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Comments
think of those STDs people don't know they have
I also wonder what sort of resource implication health checking immigrants would have.
what about someone who has been gang raped who has fled for there life and finds they are HIV +ve.
what about young girls fleeing the sex trade who may well have any number of STDs.
are you saying we should deny help and should send them back to be tourtured/raped/abused/forced into slave labour.
edited having just read the article
Immigrants would have to pay for the tests and asylum seekers would be detained until it was clear the tests had been met, it said. - and how is someone who has fled their home and owns the clothes they stand in going to pay?
are you saying that it is better not to know if there are immigrants entering the country with diseases?
It's better for the individual as well to know what they have.
I'm pretty sure that young girls wouldn't be deported like that.
I'm not sure about them having to pay for it though, you have a point their.
in my opinion it is right that people know what their health status is, but e.g. going for HIV testing has the potential to be an absolutly awful experience, esp. on top of someone who has jsut arrived and all that stress.
Before anyone says "send them back home" they should think why an asylum seeker leaves their country in the first place.
Q. How would they meet the tests, if they had originally failed?
A. Treatment
Q. Who would provide such treatment?
A. Doctors
Q. Who would pay for such the treatment?
A. NHS?
Back to square one really. Unless the suggestion is that they are billed, which bearing in mind why they come here would be a pretty fucking stupid idea. No surprise that the Tories have come up with it then
Unworkable and not thought out soudbites, as usual, when will politicians actually sort out the real problem and not look for scapegoats?
But the real problem is immigrants bringing in illnesses that weve eradicated. TB, especially, was weradicate din the UK, so much so immunisations were stopped by Blairs government, but TB has made a comeback with the increase of immigrants. I dont think thats a case of scapegoating, but saying theyre evil for it is obviously ridiculous.
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I dont think that theyre proposing banning ill people from egtting health, more a system of quarantine until it is established that they are healthy. I think its perfectly reasonable, to be honest- why should my life be put at risk from TB just because its a hardship for an asylum seeker to be detained in quarantine for a fortnight. After all, if they were really treated that badly at home, theyd be grateful of any help they get.
There are plenty of things that drain the NHS and many of them start with the legal population of this country.
Assylum seekers would be able to pay toward the national health if they were allowed to work!
The SARS epidemic showed that people were catching and spreading the virus worldwide just from going on holiday.
I saw a drama last year on BBC1 which showed a killer virus which entered this country from someone on a business trip.
We will need pretty big camps for this to be effective and I'm sure the Tories have taken this into consideration as opposed to merely running a scare story against immigrants
50% of all TB cases in this country are from immigrants - i.e. 50% aren't. Of that 50%, some of those immigrants have been in the country more than five years. So they didn't bring it in with them.
The real problem here is immunisation - at least with TB it is.
It's a reactionary, scapegoat, fear mongering policy which the Tories are well known for. Remember "single mothers" anyone?
That and the fact that TB is so infuriatingly persistent; once you've got it, it's remarkably hard to get rid of.
So some of those immigrants have been in the country less than five years and they did bring it in with them. Govt. probably won't break down the figures to say exactly what the picture is as they don't want to stigmatise immigrants.
It's certainly the casae that HIV sufferers are coming here from particularly Africa and as our Govt. has gallantly made it an ussue of Human Rights, the NHS is obliged to treat them adding to its burdens
Nothing wrong with the Tories making thse points, who else will, after all?
Apart from the NHS that is, or are we going to send people back to the country they left?
The "burden" to the NHS isn't financial, it's time and this recommendation won't change that.
Yes, unless the National Health Service is to become an Interational Health Service, besides the availibility of treatment would become a pull to the world's sick people
It already is, and always has been, a service accessible to all. We refuse no-one.
It's no coincidence that A&E is often referred to as Anything and Everything, or Anyone and Everyone.
We always have taken "care" over every person to walk (or vbe carried) through our doors. It's just a current trend to use the NHS as a weapon to beat the immigrants with.
Going back to your 50% comment:
That isn't necessarily true. It certainly isn't safe to suggest that anyone of those sufferers who came into the country less than five years ago brought TB with them.
Look at the stat. If 50% of all TB cases are from naturalised Brits then where did they get it?
TB is prevalent in the UK, it never went away but was controlled by immunisation. The problem, in so far as immigrants are concerned, is that they come from countries where no such immunisation controls existed and so they are more suceptible to the disease. I'm not ruling out that some will have come into the country whilst infected (or at least carrying the disease), but to suggest that the TB cases would disappear without immigration is incorrect.
There's surely a stong likelihood that some came here from the 3rd wporld with TB?
Legal Immigrants come to work, it's not unreasonable to enquire as to their health before or on arrival.
As for Asylum, availibility of HIV in their home country shouldn't be a factor. Harsh, but we have to proritise our efforts on our people
Yep and it's a strong likelihood that some caught it once here, but we don't carry out routine screening of the entire UK population.
Yes, I believe that we should screen people for such diseases, but not to find an excuse not to admit them, as the Tories seem to be suggesting, but to treat them. And yes, I mean on the NHS.
They are humans, we are humans. How are asylum seekers not "our people"?
Yes, they are humans of course. they are not UK citizens, they have come here, uninvited, possibly with benefits like the NHS in mind. There are potentially millions who could come here and ask for assistance, 100, 000+ are already coming pa,I don't think asylum seekers are "our people" but people who have to be processed and probably deported with no obligation fromthe UK.
As for the Asyum system, it needs radical overhauling in the light of mass transport and social disruption for developed countries like UK
But if Blair hadnt abandoned the immunisation programme because hes a fucking cheapskate then we wouldnt have a TB problem anyway- all naturalised UK citizens would be protected from this disease.
I do not blame them for coming here instead of France, btu they should be put on the first boat back to Calais and told to adhere to the Geneva Convention. If we cant even afford to pay our pensioners decent money how can we afford asylum seekers who pay no regard to asylum legislation?