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Restricted care for asylum seekers. An explorative study of rationing practices


 
 
 Access to health care for refugees in many European countries is initially restricted. In Germany, during the first 18 months after arrival, any health services except for acute needs must be requested on a case-by-case basis. As the procedures and criteria applied by medical and state actors leading to provision or denial of services are intransparent, we explored ways to study them and derived first hypothesis about resource allocation criteria to identify possible factors leading to inequities.
 
 
 
 A mixed-method-study was carried out, including six weeks of ethnographic exploration in two refugee outpatient clinics, documention of requests, a free-listing task and 20 in-depth interviews with public administrators, health workers, and translators.
 
 
 
 Of 101 requested services, 53 % were granted, 30% denied, 37 % not answered in time. Preliminary qualitative findings show that in dealing with restrictions, medical professionals develop enabling strategies as well as anticipatory obedience, the latter based on speculations about authorities' decision criteria. The effects of observed social classification e.g. of patient's behavior or reasons for migration need further exploration. Interviews suggest that in allocation decisions of authorities, structural and political considerations such as the prospect to remain in Germany, might play a role.
 
 
 
 Procedures and strategies of care provision can be explored ethnographically. We found, that in addition to medical factors, individual, formal, social, structural and political factors might play a role in distribution decisions. Continuous documentation of requests is needed to gain further insights. To ensure equal care for all refugee patients information and training of care providers and officials is necessary as well as exchange between the involved actors. The lack of transparent rationing principles opens up opportunities for discriminiation and should be reduced via open discussion.
 
 
 
 Decision making criteria and procedures to grant or deny medical care for asylum seekers in Germany are intransparent and have not been sufficiently studied yet. Heterogenous local implementation of legal regulations – through medical actors and state officials – can lead to health care inequities within vulnerable populations.
