Undocumented Migrants and Healthcare: Eight Stories from Switzerland

―Dr. Jessica Potter, Queen Mary, University of London

What do undocumented migrants experience when they try to access healthcare? How do they navigate the (often contradictory) challenges presented by bureaucratic systems, financial pressures, attitudes to migrants, and their own healthcare needs?

This urgent study uses a grounded theory approach to explore the ways in which undocumented migrants are included in or excluded from healthcare in a Swiss region. Marianne Jossen explores the ways migrants try to obtain healthcare on their own, with the help of NGOs or via insurance, and how they cope if they fail, whether by using risky strategies to access healthcare or leaving serious health issues untreated. Jossen shows that even for those who succeed, inclusion remains partial and fraught with risks.

Based on interviews with migrants, health practitioners and NGO staff and using a rigorous academic approach, Undocumented Migrants and Healthcare is an important contribution to a vital contemporary issue. It is necessary reading for researchers in Public Health and Migration Studies, as well as government and non-governmental organisations in Switzerland and beyond. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with healthcare and migration in the twenty-first century.

The Stiftung Lindenhof Bern and the Swiss Red Cross have generously contributed to this publication.

Undocumented Migrants and Healthcare: Eight Stories from Switzerland
Marianne Jossen | May 2018

116 | 2 colour illustrations | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)

Open Reports Series, vol. 6 | ISSN: 2399-6668 (Print); 2399-6676 (Online)
ISBN Paperback: 9781783744787
ISBN Hardback: 9781783744794
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781783744800
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781783744817
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781783744824

ISBN Digital (XML): 9781783745272

DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0139
Subject codes: BIC: M (Medicine), JKS (Social welfare and social services), JKSN1 (Charities, voluntary services and philanthropy), 1DF (Central Europe); BISAC: SOC007000 (SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration), SOC057000 (SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disease & Health Issues), SOC066000 (SOCIAL SCIENCE / Refugees)

1. Just going to hospital

2. Undocumented migrants, healthcare and health

3. Telling stories about healthcare for undocumented migrants

4. Settling in

5. The NGO and its network

6. Insurance

7. Healthcare for undocumented migrants

8. Literature

Marianne Jossen is a Scientific Collaborator at the Swiss Federal Office of Health and the author of articles on various issues relating to healthcare, published in journals, edited collections and the media.

© 2018 Marianne Jossen

The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:

Marianne Jossen, Undocumented Migrants and Healthcare: Eight Stories from Switzerland. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2018. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0139

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