The Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC) has called for this Thursday a sanitary response that is "stable, coordinated and continuous" to meet the health needs of immigrant people who arrive irregularly, "beyond the initial emergency care".
The entity insists that care should not be limited to the first intervention after the landing, but that it is essential to ensure its real integration into the usual circuits of the National Health System, with effective and sustained access to available resources.
As detailed in a communiqué by the organization of the XLVI Congress of the semFYC, which takes place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the context of the islands is especially significant for studying how to frame the health response to arrivals that may be concentrated in a short time and require an extraordinary mobilization of resources.
For the semFYC, the challenge is not limited to resolving the immediate clinical urgency, but to ensure that each person receives an individual assessment of their physical and mental health status, can access the services they need, and maintains their treatments and follow-ups in the medium and long term.
Along these lines, the scientific society emphasizes that the response must be adapted to each patient’s specific situation, avoiding associating the immigration status with a diagnosis or using nationality as a clinical criterion.
In this regard, the president of the Canary Islands Society of Family and Community Medicine (SoCaMFyC), Gustavo Moreno, has stated that, once the first contact has been made to check whether there is a health emergency, it is necessary to coordinate its entry into the public health system so that it receives the care it requires, on equal terms with the rest of the population.
Nationality is not synonymous with illness
Moreno has stressed that "Nationality is not synonymous with illness and care cannot be limited to ruling out an emergency: it needs time, organization and trust and resources".
According to the SoCaMFyC, the harshness of the Atlantic route is made clear by the arrivals recorded in the Canary Islands during the last week of October, especially to the island of El Hierro, episodes that "show that the health response must combine immediate care after arrival with a planning of resources capable of guaranteeing continuity of care".
Aside from the specific volume of arrivals, Moreno considers that the reality of this sea route requires a coordinated healthcare response that goes beyond the emergency of the rescue and also ensures access to Primary Care and continuity of subsequent care.
The president of the SoCaMFyC emphasizes that the pressure on healthcare devices does not depend only on the number of people treated. Their clinical situation, personal circumstances, the temporary concentration of arrivals, and the resources available to each island also play a role—factors that condition the real capacity to respond.
The first assessment makes it possible to detect and treat emergencies, but afterward it becomes essential to organize these people’s incorporation into the healthcare system, facilitate their access to Primary Care, and ensure that health problems that require follow-up do not go without control.
Guaranteeing continuity of care
Moreno recalls that health needs persist once the person leaves the first reception facility or is transferred to another accommodation resource. Continuity of care is key to reviewing medical history, maintaining treatments, addressing physical and emotional problems, and offering appropriate prevention in each situation.
To achieve this, he underscores that healthcare teams need tools that make it easier to share relevant clinical information, coordinate referrals, and ensure follow-up among the different facilities and care levels involved.
Likewise, he concludes that interpretation and intercultural mediation resources are essential to ensure comprehensible communication, as well as time and specific training to respond to each patient’s particular needs.