Medact Refugee Health Network
The right of everyone to ‘the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health’ is enshrined within the 1966 UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights(ICESCR) placing both a moral and a legal imperative on the UK to produce policies that do not infringe on the rights of all those that live within its borders.
The rationale for equitable healthcare policies, however, goes far beyond an ethical stance, there are very real clinical and public health reasons for ensuring that all healthcare policies should look to tackle health inequalities and improve access to healthcare for all. It is for these reasons and more that Medact firmly believes that healthcare should be freely accessible for all who need it on ethical, humanitarian, public health and economic grounds.
