Are you doctor, nurse or healthcare professional?

Here is a copy of a letter sent by the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown asking for medical professionals to support their campaign for refugees and asylum seekers to have access to Medicare. (I’m not a health pofessional but have signed, just in case.)

On World Health Day (7 April) the nurses in our health clinic will be leading an open letter from medical professionals to the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, calling for all people seeking asylum in the community to be given access to Medicare, regardless of their stage in the visa process. This is a longstanding position of our sector but is also a position that has been championed by other prominent advocacy bodies in the health space like the Australian Medical Association and is the latest focus of our campaign to Fix the safety net for people seeking asylum. We are encouraging doctors, nurses and anyone who works in a healthcare setting to sign up to the letter via this link where there is also a click-through to the letter text. 

Access to healthcare for people seeking asylum in Australia remains a massive issue and recently we found that around 1/3 of our clients don’t have Medicare access. The health implications are obviously extremely serious and we see the consequences every day. Treatable physical and mental health conditions worsen, often resulting in increased reliance on emergency departments and other high-cost health services down the line.