Unwitting victims' of asylum crackdown
By Peter Pallot
(Filed:
20/07/2004)
British expats who may well feel they are entitled to free
NHS care in Britain are coming up against newly-introduced restrictions.
They are either being refused access to the system or face paying for
it.
Britons in continental Europe who spend less than six months in the
UK are denied free access to state hospitals and GPs under regulations
implemented on April 1. For those outside EU boundaries, restrictions
are tougher still - they are ineligible for NHS services if they are
abroad more than three months a year.
However, emergency care on the
NHS remains open in and free of charge in all cases.
Critics say
British expat communities are the unwitting victims of a Government
crackdown on asylum seekers and people from Aids-ravaged counties
exploiting UK's "open door" health service.
The apparent unfairness of
refusing care to a Briton who pays taxes to the Chancellor all his life,
retires to Spain but cannot return for cataract surgery has prompted
speculation that doctors won't bother to check a patient's credentials.
Sir David Warmington, a former City figure now living in the Costa del
Sol, said he knew of two cases where expats had been caught by the new
regulations. In one case, the patient was turned away. In the second,
the doctor put Hippocrates before Health Secretary John Reid and treated
the patient anyway.
Mr Reid's aim is to make the NHS "a British service
for people who live in Britain." Doctors appear divided as to how much
support they will give. The extent of the split in the profession was
highlighted at the British Medical Association annual conference in
Llandudno, Wales, last month.
David Shubhaker, a GP in Gants Hill,
Es., said health tourism was widespread with one in 10 of his patients
on brief visits from the Indian subcontinent and not strictly eligible
for non-urgent treatment.
East London GP Dr Kate Adams said: "I think
there is quite a lot of misuse of the health service. I am surprised how
often a patient brings a relative in."
She urged the introduction of
identity cards. But this was opposed by a colleague: "It is not the job
of a doctor to decide who to treat."
Health insurance advisers say that
although some British expats might buck the system and get care to which
they are not entitled, a safer option is to take medical cover. This
should include a repatriation benefit so that surgery can be done
privately in UK if the individual wants to be in a home setting with
relatives at hand.
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