Free seminars to develop global health advocates
Seeking refuge – effective advocacy for refugees and asylum seekers
This seminar aims to build awareness of the key issues that refugees and asylum seekers may face and how best we can protect and promote their health and wellbeing.
Chair: Dr David McCoy, Medact
Medact is a global health charity led by a network of health care professionals, which advocates for the prevention of violent conflict and its devastating effects on health. Medact has campaigned for more that 10 years against charging asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups for healthcare. This summer, the Government will launch a consultation on charges for NHS care, including primary care. Medact was a founding member of the Entitlement Working group, whose members will be preparing strong responses to the consultation.
Speakers to include:
Dr Naomi Hartree, Medical Justice
As part of the controversial changes that our health system underwent on April 1st, the NHS in England took over responsibility for the healthcare of people detained in immigration removal centres. Could this be a golden opportunity to improve the poor standards of healthcare and injustices that immigration detainees currently face? Dr. Naomi Hartree from Medical Justice recently wrote on this subject in the BMJ. Medical Justice is a charity that exposes and challenges inadequate healthcare provision to immigration detainees and has provided assistance to over a thousand individuals held in detention.
Zrinka Bralo, Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum
Zrinka Bralo is a journalist from Sarajevo and has been involved with refugee and human rights since she was exiled in 1993. She is executive director of the Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum in London and has served as a commissioner of the Independent Asylum Commission, the most comprehensive review of the UK protection system. She has previously written for Migrant Voice, The Guardian, openDemocracy, The Huffington Post and featured in Marcel Ophüls’ documentary Veillées d’armes. She is also a winner of the 2011 Voices Of Courage Award by the Women’s Refugee Commission in New York.
Anna Musgrave, Refugee Council
Anna Musgrave is the women’s advocacy officer at the Refugee Council. The Refugee Council provides practical and therapeutic support in a variety of languages to asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. She has been most recently working on the Refugee Council’s Dignity in Pregnancy Campaign, which is calling for a change in government policy to help protect pregnant women seeking asylum and their babies.
Thursday 30 May 2013
18:30 – 20:00
Followed by a drinks reception
Reserve your place: email international@rcplondon.ac.uk
Royal College of Physicians | Regents Park | London | NW1 4LE
