ANTI RACISTS TO LOBBY IMMIGRATION MINISTER BYRNE

28-03-2008

Anti-racist activists are planning to picket the weekly surgery of Immigration Minister and Hodge Hill MP Liam Byrne over plans to deny healthcare to migrants and asylum seekers. Their campaign has been backed by more than 600 doctors.

The government recently floated the idea of restricting NHS access to people who’ve arrived in Britain without documentation as well as asylum seekers whose applications to stay have been rejected (http://tinyurl.com/3dmx6j).

663 doctors claim that lives will be lost as a result, and 86 MP’s have signed an early day motion criticising the proposals.

Now members of the Anti Racist Campaign West Midlands are inviting members of the public to join their lobby of Liam Byrne’s MP’s surgery on Saturday 5 April, between 9 and 11am.

It’s at Saltley Methodist Church, 140 Alum Rock Road, Birmingham 8.

ARC point out that the first defining principle of the NHS is that it “will provide a universal service for all based on clinical need, not ability to pay.

“Healthcare is a basic human right. Unlike private systems, the NHS will not exclude people because of their health, status or ability to pay.”

That's the theory anyway. Now the challenge is help Byrne - a former Health Minister - understand what those words mean.

Only yesterday, the Independent Asylum Commission said that the UK's asylum system was "marred by inhumanity" and fell "seriously below" the standards expected of a civilised society (http://tinyurl.com/2ba2br).

Should failed asylum seekers and immigrants who don't have documents be given primary care on the NHS? Leave a comment on the Stirrer Forum.