Abstract
This chapter describes how access to healthcare is organized for undocumented migrants (UDMs) in European health systems. Undocumented migrants include individuals who have entered a country without documentation, peo- ple whose legal basis (e.g. a visa, residence, or work permit) for being in the country has expired or become invalidated, and those who have been unsuccessful in obtaining asylum. Although ‘undocumented’ is most com- mon, ‘illegal’, ‘irregular’, or ‘unauthorized’ is also used in European literature (Woodward et al., 2013). Estimates of the number of undocumented migrants in the European Union (EU) countries (Croatia not yet included) range from 1.9 to 3.8 million people (European Commission, 2009). This is a substantial number but comparatively low to some other regions of the world, including the United States, which has an estimated 11.8 million undocumented migrants.
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© 2015 Ewout van Ginneken and Bradford H. Gray
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van Ginneken, E., Gray, B.H. (2015). European Policies on Healthcare for Undocumented Migrants. In: Kuhlmann, E., Blank, R.H., Bourgeault, I.L., Wendt, C. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Healthcare Policy and Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384935_38
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384935_38
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