Immigration law: more than 5,000 caregivers demand the withdrawal of the text, deemed “deadly for public health”

Immigration law in the sights of caregivers. More than 5,000 health professionals and around fifty caregiver organizations warned on Saturday of the “dramatic health and social consequences”, according to them, of this text, calling on the Élysée to “withdraw this deadly law for public health”. “We, women and men in the health, social, care and research professions wish to place the President of the Republic (Emmanuel Macron) and his government before their immense responsibility,” they write in a column sent to the AFP.

They “solemnly” ask Emmanuel Macron “not to promulgate” the text. Among the signatories are the general secretary of the Union of health center doctors Julie Chastang, the co-president of the Inter Urgences collective Pierre Schwob-Tellier, the representative of the French pediatric society Christèle Gras-Le Guen and the psychiatrist and national secretary of the PS Antoine Pélissolo, as well as professional organizations and associations.

For them, the law on immigration adopted Tuesday forceps by Parliament “seriously calls into question our humanist health model”. It will have consequences in particular on the health of "the most vulnerable, the children", they assure, fearing "an intolerable deterioration in infant mortality, which has already increased for ten years in France" due to "social inequalities in particular ". This text “is contrary to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child”, they write, citing the “limitation of family reunification”, the “complication of administrative procedures necessary for isolated minors” or the “limitation of accommodation for emergency".

They also deplore the new conditions introduced to benefit from social assistance. “Restrictions on housing for illegal immigrants threaten to further marginalize them, forcing them to live in precarious and unsanitary conditions”, with “devastating effects on their physical and mental health”, they continue, recalling that the Lack of housing also exposes people to “the street and situations of sexual vulnerability”.

“The suspension of medical care for rejected asylum seekers and the restrictions on residence permits due to serious illness” risk “increasing medical emergencies” and contributing to the spread of “infectious diseases” . Finally, they recall that “25% of doctors working in hospitals today are “practitioners with non-European Union qualifications” (PADHUE)” and wonder: “How can we humanly understand that we attract doctors to France, to the detriment of their countries of origin, while refusing to treat patients from these same countries?