The free healthcare advocacy programme, Project: London, is to open its doors one Saturday of every month to accommodate the rising numbers of users. Run by the charity Doctors of the World UK, Project: London has been working since 2006 with the aim of helping the most vulnerable get access to medical treatment and advice.
Theme: Sport
Government failing mental health needs of refugees and asylum seekers
A new report has found that restrictive and contradictory government policies have severe implications for the mental health and well-being of refugees and asylum seekers. According to research conducted by Mind, the mental healthcare system in the UK is ‘regularly failing refugees and asylum seekers’ by not responding adequately to the numerous barriers that they
Health professionals speak out against detention of children
Every year hundreds of children in the UK are detained in immigration centres because their families face deportation, this policy is harmful and must change say medical experts. The Royal Colleges of Paediatrics, GPs and Psychiatrists say other countries have found alternatives to detention and want the British government to take a different approach to
Blow to Black mental health in Birmingham
A petition is to be delivered to Downing Street in protest at the forced closure of Birmingham’s only Black-led community mental health service. Omnicare, a provider of mental health services to Birmingham’s Black community for a quarter of a century, will close its doors to patients after a two-year battle with Birmingham City Council to
Bad science?
The UK Border Agency is trialing a controversial isotope analysis to determine nationality. The UK Border Agency (UKBA) plans to test people’s nationality by isotope analysis, according to an announcement made on 11 September by the Central Operations and Performance directorate. The ‘Human Provenance Pilot Project’, scheduled to run for ten months from 14 September
Godfrey Moyo – prisoner or patient?
On 6 July 2009, an inquest jury recorded a highly critical verdict of neglect in the death of Godfrey Moyo in HMP Belmarsh. Twenty-five-year-old Godfrey Moyo, a Zimbabwean, died while on remand at the Category A Belmarsh prison on 3 January 2005 in the early hours of the morning after suffering an epileptic fit. Godfrey’s
Mobilising healthcare professionals
A recent conference organised by Médecins du Monde UK (MdM) highlighted the campaign to provide access to healthcare for refused asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. The obstacles faced by undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in obtaining access to health care were discussed by around seventy doctors and other healthcare professionals, lawyers and others at the
Important legal ruling for refused asylum seekers
The Court of Appeal has ruled that hospitals have a discretion but not a legal obligation to provide treatment for refused asylum seekers. On 30 March 2009, the Court of Appeal handed down a ruling which contained both bad and good news for refused asylum seekers. The Court allowed the Department of Health’s (DoH) appeal
‘Besieged in Britain’
New report reveals devastating impact on families of Britain’s control orders and detention regime. The Institute of Race Relations has published a new report on the devastating impact on family life of Britain’s anti-terrorist control order and detention policy. The report, entitled ‘Besieged in Britain’, has been written by journalist and author Victoria Brittain, co-author
A tribute to Abdelhakim Ajimi
A death in police custody in south-east France is causing community concern. Behind a banner proclaiming ‘police blunder, assassins’, hundreds of people, a thousand perhaps (according to the organisers), took part in a largely silent demonstration (except when marching past the police station) on Sunday 11 May in the centre of the south-eastern city of