Getting Real About Refugees and Public Health
Melissa S. Hersh
Society, Europe
Properly immunizing millions of people is no small feat.
They came. They saw. They left.
Leaders convened in Brussels earlier this week to discuss how to move forward in earnest with the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan on refugees. The informal summit was certainly much ado about nothing. They proposed twelve goals, none of them new nor unexpected. EU officials placed emphasis on how to manage irregular migrants—or migrants seeking economic well-being as opposed to seeking asylum based on conflict—but gave little attention to how Turkey and the EU will actually manage the safety and security of existing and forthcoming refugees into Turkey. And that presents a big problem.
For example, the risk caused by not introducing mandatory infectious disease screening to refugees, whose health services have been disrupted since 2011, borders on negligence. Yet in Europe, the attention that has been directed towards mandatory infectious disease screening has been co-opted by the predominantly anti-refugee political parties. For now, the EU and Turkey have been focusing on resettlement as well as the need for maintaining border controls, with some passing references to matriculating children into schools in their respective host nations. It remains unclear, however, how Europe and Turkey will continue to manage the public health risks to refugees who have gone with little to no health services since war broke out in Syria five years ago.
Prior to Monday’s meeting, European Council President Donald Tusk traveled to central and eastern Europe to garner consensus on migration in a politically charged environment. Tusk’s three-pronged agenda included: (1) Prohibiting countries from championing a “wave-through” policy of migrants, and rather recommitting to Europe’s common rules and decisions, including the Schengen Borders Code; (2) a rather nebulous confirmation of Turkey’s commitment to “take back” migrants leaving Turkey for mainland Europe in exchange for future just rewards; and (3) more talk about providing humanitarian assistance to Greece and the proposal of a new Emergency Assistance instrument of 700 million euros, to compensate or incentivize the initiative of national governments in these humanitarian efforts.
Read full article