Indicator history

In Italy the access to health services is guaranteed also for irregular immigrants (art. 35 of the Unified Text on Immigration) and health services can not report to the police irregular migrants who use them. Recently, during the discussions on the new security decree (Law 94/2009), an amendment was proposed that would have required medical staff to report foreign nationals without stay permits who access health structures to the authorities. Health workers, together with associations working in defence of migrants' rights, strongly opposed such amendment because it required medical and administrative personnel to disclose information gathered in the course of their professional duties, in violation of the principle of confidentiality they should observe in accordance with professional ethics. They organized public demonstrations against it and following the bitter controversy over the proposal, the amendment was cancelled .The Local Health Services (ASL) of a number of regions sent specific circulars to health care structures reaffirming that the only provision to be observed was that contained in the Consolidated Text on Immigration, providing that the hospital staff cannot report irregular immigrants who seek treatment in their services to the police. In a number of health structures, posters inviting irregular migrants to seek medical treatments without fear of being denounced posted. In spite of such initiatives, emergency and out-patient wards for undocumented migrants recorded a decrease in the number of users. The Association of doctors of foreign origin in Italy reported a 30 per cent decrease in the number of foreign patients in the Italian hospitals.

Moreover there are other problems: the Art. 37 par. 2 of the 2009 Financial act (Italy / Law no. 133 (06.08.2008) cancelled the provision of the Unified Text on Immigration that provided that EU citizens could benefit of the provisions concerning health care applied to non-EU citizens if these provisions are more favourable than the rules of the Community law.

Source: Cospe Complementary Data Collection Contribution to the FRA Annual Report 2009 http://www.cospe.it/cospe/uploads/documenti/allegati/raxen_rapporto_annuale_2009_italia.pdf

Cospe, Contribution to the FRA Annual Report 2010 Italy, October 2009 http://www.cirdi.org/studi-e-ricerche/raxen-rapporto-annuale-2010