Press release: Doctors call for closure of military barracks housing asylum seekers amid health concerns

Housing asylum seekers and survivors of torture and modern slavery in military barracks during a global pandemic is clinically inappropriate and puts migrant lives and public health at risk, warn UK healthcare professionals. They have written to the Secretary of State for the Home Office and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to urge them to close barracks housing asylum seekers in England and Wales amid growing concern about conditions in the camps, residents’ complex health needs and poor access to healthcare, and the lack of COVID-19 measures in place. The joint letter has been coordinated by Doctors of World, Freedom from Torture and the Helen Bamber Foundation and signed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Faculty of Public Health. Read the joint letter “As organisations representing medical professionals and patients, we are writing to raise concern about the use of Ministry of Defence (MoD) sites to house people seeking asylum and survivors of modern slavery,” they said. “We believe that these sites are unsuitable for this purpose due to the lack of access to adequate and appropriate healthcare services, the public health risks resulting from a lack of compliance with the COVID-19 regulations, and the risk of re-traumatisation triggered by accommodation in former military barracks. “We call for an end to the use of MoD sites as accommodation for migrants.” In September, the government commissioned previously disused M...
Source: Doctors of the World News - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Uncategorised Source Type: news