The Right to Healthcare: a critical examination of the restrictions on access to state funded HIV/AIDS treatment for irregular migrants

Abstract

In the UK health care legislation has progressively restricted the rights of irregular migrants to access free medical treatment. Policy discussions concerning allocation of health resources have typically been framed by a perceived need to discourage overseas patients from “taking advantage” of the National Health Service (NHS) – a practise pejoratively known as “health tourism”. This has been particularly true in the context of HIV/AIDS for which treatment is often prohibitively expensive in other countries. Here we undertake a comparative review of health care legislation in the UK and other jurisdictions, looking at how such legislation is shaped by immigration policy, and the extent to which irregular migrants who suffer from HIV/AIDS are able to access treatment. We argue that evidence simply does not support the omnipresent belief that “health tourism” poses a threat to the financial integrity of the NHS.