Unlawful HIV+ Migrants Detention

posted: 19/04/2010

Two people with HIV are claiming that the Home Office (and UK Border Agency) are illegally failing to provide them with adequate HIV treatment and care while they are held in detention for months. The same solicitors who took the Department of Health to courts for charging refused asylum seekers and other migrants for their HIV treatment, Pierce Glynn, are dealing with these two cases.

HIV+ migrants detention not ' very exceptional'

Home Office guidance says that someone with a serious medical condition (like HIV) should only be detained if there are “very exceptional circumstances.” Despite this, the Home Office has failed to justify detention of either person as ‘very exceptional’. Additionally, the standard of healthcare provided in immigration removal centres falls well below that which is essential for people with a serious condition such as HIV. For both people, during many months of detention, their HIV treatments have run out several times, and they have not been taken to appointments with their HIV consultant.

These two cases illustrate the concerns raised repeatedly by HIV organisations and HIV clinicians. These Judicial Review hearings should take place in the next two months.

Released after 8 months
In a related case, the same solicitors, Pierce Glynn, obtained the release of another HIV+ detainee who was held for eight months, again with no exceptional circumstances to justify this detention. After solicitors letters threatened a judicial review, the Home Office released the person. The solicitors are now suing the Home Office for damages due to the lengthy and unnecessary detention, and their failure to provide appropriate medical care.

Source 
 

Asylum Detention Challenges

posted: 23/03/2010

The harsh treatment faced by detained women and children seeking asylum - including women and children with HIV - who are held at Yarl’s Wood will now be closely considered by both the High Court and the British Medical Association.
 

Three Human Rights Abused
"Lawyers have been granted permission to challenge the government's detention policy, which they claim amounts to "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment of women and children.

The High Court has given the go-ahead for a judicial review of the cases of four women held at the Yarl’s Wood detention centre after lawyers claimed their treatment breaches articles three, five and eight of the European convention on human rights. This comes very soon after many women have ended a 5 week hunger strike in protest at the conditions and their treatment.

Jim Duffy, a solicitor at Public Interest Lawyers, which is bringing the case, welcomed the decision. "The case confronts the policy and practice of the Home Office and the private company running Yarls Wood, Serco."
 

Three Yarl's Wood doctors investigated
Three doctors working at Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre are facing investigation by the General Medical Council, amid calls for healthcare at the centre to be transferred from the private sector to the NHS. Alistair Burt, Tory MP for North East Bedfordshire, (containing Yarl’s Wood) described healthcare as the weak link and that this weakness can only be ended by transferring healthcare to the NHS.
 

As he points out: "If there is an issue over fitness to travel and the decision is made by a contracted company inside Yarl's Wood, what chance is there of having confidence that it has not been influenced by the contract given to the contractors to get people out of the country?"

More details from Medical Justice 1 and Medical Justice 2 and Medical Justice 3