Mei-ling Wiedmeyer and Omar Chu Vancouver Sun Oct 18, 2022
An estimated one in five British Columbians do not have a primary care provider, and some have gone to desperate lengths to find one. These stories are heartbreaking, and we think that everyone living in B.C. deserves access to health care.
Sadly, we have learned in our work with temporary and undocumented migrants living and working in B.C., that our health-care system is anything but universal. Hundreds of thousands of people are currently being excluded from accessing human rights in Canada, including the right to health care.
That is why we have joined nearly 1,000 health workers and health organizations across the country in signing an open letter asking the federal government to immediately grant permanent immigration status to all migrants living in Canada, including undocumented people. We are also calling on provinces, including B.C., to ensure health care for all, regardless of immigration status.
Despite Canada’s reputation as an upholder of human rights, the right to health and other basic needs depends on immigration status, making your papers determine your rights over and above your humanity. The World Health Organization defines health care as a human right. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has condemned Canada in the past for denying access to essential health care on the basis of immigration status.
A program to expand permanent residency for undocumented migrants (or regularization) and permanent resident status for those on temporary authorizations would effectively improve their health. Regularization is a common practice in nations comparable to Canada, as we’ve seen in Ireland, Italy, and Spain.
For decades, migrants in Canada have been calling for a comprehensive regularization program to address these rights violations. We see regularly the difficult health consequences that result from having the “wrong” immigration status. Truly upholding the human right to health is only possible when everyone living here has full and permanent immigration status.
Right now, the federal government is considering regularizing or giving permanent resident status to undocumented workers. If realized, this policy has the potential to transform the health of over half a million people. People who are our colleagues, neighbours, contributors to the fabric of our communities, and many of whom have done essential frontline work throughout the COVID pandemic.
Health-care workers know this program is urgently important because we see daily the impacts that the lack of permanent resident status has on people’s health.
People have to choose between medication and food. People’s mental health deteriorates because they simply want to work, but they aren’t allowed and because they are separated from their families. People delay seeking care until their conditions have progressed to a point where it is an emergency. When they do seek care, they are forced to navigate complicated pathways to access care, and many continue to be denied access to essential health-care services.
The COVID pandemic has further highlighted that our community wellbeing is highly interconnected, and we place our entire society at risk by failing to guarantee access to affordable health care to all people. In our own research, using data obtained from Population Data B.C., we found that people with temporary immigration status were less likely to have access to COVID testing and related primary care, but more likely to test positively for COVID (undocumented people were not included in the data). These are urgent needs requiring an urgent solution: Any delay to implementing a broad and inclusive regularization program and ensuring status for all will have serious consequences for our patients who are migrants.
In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, health care workers and civil society organizations in B.C. and across the country wrote open letters calling for urgent measures to ensure health care for all. In December 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to create a “regularization program.” Now is the time to make it happen.