Access to health care among Somali forced migrants in Johannesburg
Date
2007-02-23T14:21:22Z
Authors
Pursell, Irene
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Abstract
Objective: To identify and investigate barriers faced by Somali forced migrants when
accessing health care in Johannesburg. In particular, the study seeks to compare
perceptions of health personnel and migrants as to the nature of such access constraints.
Design and Methods: The study made use of semi-structured and in-depth interviews
with a snowball sample of health personnel and migrants. Ten health personnel were
interviewed and twenty migrants (ten male and ten female).
Results: Constraints of language and xenophobia were identified by both health
personnel and forced migrant interviewed. Constraints related to the shortage of
resources and the poor functioning of the referral system are experienced by all users of
the public health system, irrespective of their nationality. No mention was made of
traditional or allopathic medicine.
Conclusions: There exists a gap between the access to health care guaranteed in the
Refugees Act and practices at facility level. There are many similarities across interviews
in the constraints identified by migrants and some agreement in the constraints identified
by migrants and health personnel. These results confirm that migrants experience a fairly
severe level of constraint when attempting to utilize formal health care services in
Johannesburg.
Description
Student Number 9705165A
Master of Arts in Forced Migration Studies
Faculty of Humanities
Keywords
Forced Migrants, Somalis, Health care access, Access constraints, Language constraints, Xenophobia, Formal Health Care Services