Page 102 - S. Ličen, I. Karnjuš, & M. Prosen (Eds.). (2019). Women, migrations and health: Ensuring transcultural healthcare. Koper, University of Primorska Press.
P. 102
ie-Louise Luiking and Harshida Patel
pending on the healthcare model, service provision and the quality of care
might differ between a migrant’s home country and host country. This can
result in a mismatch between the care provided and the individual’s expec-
tations from the healthcare system: ‘It is not easy for a foreigner to cure our
diseases. The Chinese [. . .] when they go to school, they don’t teach them
about African sicknesses. [. . .]’ (Lin et al., 2015)
Access to Healthcare
This dimension addressed the barriers or enablers to healthcare in the host
country. When a need for services is identified by migrants, their socio-
economic and legal status can affect their access to services. To even access
the correct service, the individual migrant and/or their families need to know
how to go about such access. Language difficulties and lack of information
can serve to adversely affect their rights. An additional issue is that service
providers can turn out to be gatekeepers to the required services (Biswas
et al., 2011; Legido-Quigley, Nolte, Green, la Parra, & McKee, 2012; Lin et al.,
2015). Care-seeking can become outright dangerous for undocumented per-
sons: ‘If I go to the doctor and the doctor is a very good Danish person, a
good citizen, then maybe he will call the police. And then I would be handed
over to the police and then I would have a great problem. Then my life is
risky.’ (Biswas et al., 2011). These issues can have a detrimental effect on the
individual migrant’s health and they may apply alternative health-seeking
strategies (Biswas et al., 2011; Krupic et al., 2016; Main, 2016) ‘When I am not
feeling well, I will call my doctor in my home country. He will ask about my
symptoms and tell me what medicine to get over the phone’ (Lin et al., 2015).
The Encounter
When individual migrants do access the services, the way they are treated
as a person and as a patient is determined by the staff they encounter. This
juncture has huge implications for the trajectory of a person’s care. Yet the en-
counter can prove problematic due to language difficulties and a lack of mu-
tual knowledge of how to act in a culturally appropriately way. This also cov-
ers the misunderstandings of what an individual migrant wants from service
providers, what they are used to in their own countries and what the service
provider states that the person with migrant status needs ‘In Poland, people
go to the doctor more often. Pregnancy is the best example. In Poland, your
pregnancy is over-medicalized. You are constantly under medical surveil-
lance, constantly tested. Here it is the opposite [. . .] pregnancy is not an ill-
ness; you don’t need to be on sick leave all these months [. . .]’ (Main, 2016)
100
pending on the healthcare model, service provision and the quality of care
might differ between a migrant’s home country and host country. This can
result in a mismatch between the care provided and the individual’s expec-
tations from the healthcare system: ‘It is not easy for a foreigner to cure our
diseases. The Chinese [. . .] when they go to school, they don’t teach them
about African sicknesses. [. . .]’ (Lin et al., 2015)
Access to Healthcare
This dimension addressed the barriers or enablers to healthcare in the host
country. When a need for services is identified by migrants, their socio-
economic and legal status can affect their access to services. To even access
the correct service, the individual migrant and/or their families need to know
how to go about such access. Language difficulties and lack of information
can serve to adversely affect their rights. An additional issue is that service
providers can turn out to be gatekeepers to the required services (Biswas
et al., 2011; Legido-Quigley, Nolte, Green, la Parra, & McKee, 2012; Lin et al.,
2015). Care-seeking can become outright dangerous for undocumented per-
sons: ‘If I go to the doctor and the doctor is a very good Danish person, a
good citizen, then maybe he will call the police. And then I would be handed
over to the police and then I would have a great problem. Then my life is
risky.’ (Biswas et al., 2011). These issues can have a detrimental effect on the
individual migrant’s health and they may apply alternative health-seeking
strategies (Biswas et al., 2011; Krupic et al., 2016; Main, 2016) ‘When I am not
feeling well, I will call my doctor in my home country. He will ask about my
symptoms and tell me what medicine to get over the phone’ (Lin et al., 2015).
The Encounter
When individual migrants do access the services, the way they are treated
as a person and as a patient is determined by the staff they encounter. This
juncture has huge implications for the trajectory of a person’s care. Yet the en-
counter can prove problematic due to language difficulties and a lack of mu-
tual knowledge of how to act in a culturally appropriately way. This also cov-
ers the misunderstandings of what an individual migrant wants from service
providers, what they are used to in their own countries and what the service
provider states that the person with migrant status needs ‘In Poland, people
go to the doctor more often. Pregnancy is the best example. In Poland, your
pregnancy is over-medicalized. You are constantly under medical surveil-
lance, constantly tested. Here it is the opposite [. . .] pregnancy is not an ill-
ness; you don’t need to be on sick leave all these months [. . .]’ (Main, 2016)
100
