ACTION OF THE WEEK - Destination Unknown
Written by Tom Yates, about 1 year ago | Permalink
Medsin campaigns team would like to suggest you visit the African HIV Policy Network website and support their campaign to end the deportation of HIV positive people to countries where access to ARVs is not secure. Here is the background to the case...
Deportation and People living with HIV On 5 May 2005 the House of Lords delivered a judgment on the matter of ‘N’ ([2005] UKHL31). It ruled that deportation of a person living with HIV to a country where s/he was unlikely to receive adequate HIV treatment was not incompatible with their right to be free of inhumane treatment under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In concluding their written judgment, the Lords made it clear that the Home Office can exercise discretion in deciding not to return such individuals to their home countries, but that if it decides on deportation, it will not be operating in breach of human rights legislation. In the view of a number of HIV advocates, this decision essentially authorizes hundreds of HIV-positive people living in the UK to be deported to their home countries.
Our Position The AHPN believes that there is a clear contradiction between the UK's policy aim of universal access to HIV treatment for all those who need it by 2010 and the deportation of people living with HIV who are on treatment to countries where treatment is not readily available or affordable. The withdrawal of treatment increases the body's vulnerability to opportunistic infection and will result in drastically shortened life expectancy.
The AHPN believes that there are strong public health arguments for allowing a concession. Those awaiting removal may go underground and fail to keep appointments resulting in an increased risk of opportunistic infection with the need for emergency treatment and an increased risk of onward transmission. The Department of Health has valued the prevention of one single onward transmission as between £0.5 and £1 million in terms of individual health benefits and treatment costs.
The “Destination Unknown” Campaign is calling on: The Home Office to delay the deportation of people living with HIV from the United Kingdom until antiretroviral treatment becomes more widely available. The AHPN is also asking MPs to support the campaign by endorsing Early Day Motion 1556.
Background information
There are 40 million people living with HIV world wide and only 1.3 million receiving treatment. www.unaids.org
There are 63,500 people living with HIV in the UK, of which 21,500 are African born. There were 7450 new infections in 2005. www.hpa.org.uk
EDM 1556 This house notes that there is a clear contradiction between the UK’s policy aim of universal access to treatment for all those who need it by 2010 and the deportation of people living with HIV who are on treatment to countries where treatment is not readily available or affordable; notes that the withdrawal of treatment increases the body’s vulnerability to opportunistic infection and will result in drastically shortened life expectancy, and welcomes the launch of the African HIV Policy Network’s campaign calling on the Government to allow HIV positive people on HIV treatment to stay in the United Kingdom, until they are able to return home when access to antiretroviral treatments becomes more widely available.
International Development Committee 18 December 2006, HIV/AIDS: Marginalised Groups and Emerging Groups stated: We see a clear contradiction between a policy of routinely charging those failed asylum seekers who want to start a course of treatment after their application has been rejected and Government advocacy of the universal access goal. We believe that undermining the needs of minority groups in this way is a denial of their human rights and weakens DFID’s international leadership on this issue. We believe that DFID should play a role in ensuring that asylum seekers living with HIV are not returned to countries where access to ARVs is not practical. We regret that more progress has not been made on these matters since our last report.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights Tenth Report of Session 2006-07 report “The Treatment of Asylum Seekers” stated: We accept that there is no universal worldwide access to free medical treatment, but recommend that on the basis of common humanity, and in support of its wider international goal of halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, the Government should provide free HIV/AIDS treatment for refused asylum seekers for as long as they remain in the UK. Absence of treatment for serious infectious diseases raises wider public health risks. The Government should not deport a person in circumstances where that person is in the final stages of a terminal illness and would not have access to medical care to prevent acute suffering while he is dying.
