Last update - 00:00 17/03/2008
Illegal immigrants' clinic closes in protest of state's inactivity
By Ruth Sinai
Thousands of illegal immigrants, many of whom suffer from tuberculosis and other contagious diseases, will be denied medical care next week when a medical clinic in Tel Aviv closes. The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) organization Sunday announced that it will be closing its clinic to protest what it termed the Health Ministry's refusal to take responsibility for foreign migrants and homeless people in need of medical attention.
"A volunteer clinic, with a low budget, cannot, should not and is incapable of being a worthy substitute for a proper solution from the state," the PHR wrote Health Minister Yacov Ben Yizri. "We lack the means to diagnose and treat and lack the means available at hospitals."
Ministry officials, however, claim people staying in Israel illegally are not entitled to medical care and will receive it only in urgent cases at hospital emergency rooms. They added that illegal aliens may pay for health insurance for their children from the Meuhedet health maintenance organization.
Last year, the number of patients at the PHR clinic in south Tel Aviv, which is home to Israel's largest population of foreign workers, grew by over 70 percent, from 301 a month in 2006 to 504 in 2007. About 100 patients a night have been receiving treatment at the clinic in the past few months. The organization has handed out brochures to the clinic's patients, advising them how to receive medical treatment at emergency rooms after the clinic closes.
In recent weeks, the health bureau in Tel Aviv has enlisted the organization's help in finding illegal immigrants with chicken pox. A few of the women, who were also pregnant, received treatment paid by the state at the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv. The ministry, in tandem with the PHR, has been trying to locate illegal immigrants staying at shelters in Tel Aviv who carry tuberculosis.
"The situation in which the Health Ministry considers us a senior partner in preventing the outbreak of diseases among refugees is unacceptable," PHR director general Hadas Ziv said.