Migrações & Saúde

As migrações internacionais são um fenómeno de grande expansão em todo o mundo. A intensidade e o ritmo dos movimentos populacionais têm vindo a aumentar gradualmente num mundo globalizado .
O acesso aos cuidados de saúde para os recém-chegados, representa um factor de integração e um meio de promoção da Saúde Pública nas sociedades de acolhimento.(Portal da presidência portuguesa)
Nos EUA, os emigrantes (como a maioria da população) debatem-se com enormes dificuldades de acesso aos cuidados de saúde .link

(...) For recent immigrants — especially the estimated 12 million who are here (United States of American) illegally — seeking health care often involves daunting encounters with a fragmented, bewildering, and hostile system. The reason most immigrants come here is to work and earn money; on average, they are younger and healthier than native-born Americans, and they tend to avoid going to the doctor. Many work for employers who don't offer health insurance, and they can't afford insurance premiums or medical care. They face language and cultural barriers, and many illegal immigrants fear that visiting a hospital or clinic may draw the attention of immigration officials. Although anti-immigrant sentiment is fueled by the belief that immigrants can obtain federal benefits, 1996 welfare-reform legislation greatly restricted immigrants' access to programs such as Medicaid, shifting most health care responsibility to state and local governments. The law requires that immigrants wait 5 years after obtaining lawful permanent residency (a "green card") to apply for federal benefits. In response, some states and localities — for instance, Illinois, New York, the District of Columbia, and certain California counties — have used their own funds to expand health insurance coverage even for undocumented immigrant children and pregnant women with low incomes. Other states, however, such as Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, and Virginia, have passed laws making it even more difficult for noncitizens to gain access to health services.
Whether or not they have health insurance, immigrants overall have much lower per capita health care expenditures than native-born Americans, and recent analyses indicate that they contribute more to the economy in taxes than they receive in public benefits .

"Even the 25-year-old day laborers are eventually going to become 45-year-olds, probably still undocumented, with hypertension and diabetes. . . . Life in America is going to make them become not so healthy."

The annual cost to U.S. hospitals of uncompensated care (charity care plus bad debt) has been rising, although the fraction of total hospital expenses represented by such care has remained relatively constant at about 5 to 6% since 1980. The number of unauthorized immigrants present in the United States has also been increasing, although the estimates are uncertain. Treatment of unauthorized immigrants contributes to uncompensated care costs, but the main reason such costs are increasing is the rise in the number of people who lack health insurance. Immigrants represent only about 20% of the uninsured.
The New England Journal of Medicine Volume 357:525-529 August 9, 2007, Number 6