ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the health and wider social circumstances of people excluded from public health care services in Germany and the UK, with a focus on migrants. It is based on the experience of the Médecins du Monde (MdM) programmes in London and Munich, drawing on data collected in these programmes in 2014. Established in 1980, MdM is an international network of non-governmental organisations working to improve access to health care and the protection of human rights. Since conception, MdM’s mission has been twofold: to provide health care to those in need and to bear witness to the life circumstances of patients. Today, MdM runs health care programmes across the world using patient testimonies and data to advocate for universal access to health care. In this chapter, we aim to compare data from clinics in London and Munich, and we reflect on the needs of the patients in these clinics. We then go on to discuss the consequences of exclusion from public health care and describe the actions that are needed to improve the situations of these patients in the long term.
