HIV specialists criticize health exclusion of undocumented

According to a survey of the Group for the Study of Aids (GESIDA) of the Spanish Company for Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC), the 37% of infectious disease specialists in HIV state that the Royal Decree of 2012 which left no standard health care to illegal immigrants made difficult their work. In the study participated 97 professionals from 16 autonomous communities (all the Spanish autonomous communities except Murcia).

Doctors say that the 21% of cases patients "were not addressed even under the conditions set by law". That is, that even in emergencies or the children and pregnant women received the care needed for their situation, and a comprehensive monitoring their condition was not performed.

In the study there is no a quantification of these cases. Nor has it been since 2012 on immigrants affected by the measure. This newspaper calculated that could be around 150,000. The government has said that around 900,000 health cards have been removed, but in these numbers include cases of deaths, duplicates, people who no longer reside in Spain and EU citizens residing in the country but whose attention should be paid by their home or their insurance.

Doctors also remind the risk that this policy means for public health. While most community - and the Ministry of health - state that must be addressed to people with transmissible diseases (tuberculosis, meningitis) that can spread to the rest of the population and endanger, GESIDA states that to treat, it must first diagnose and this is very difficult if they don’t have access to primary care.

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