FLEXIBILITY OF GENERAL PRACTITIONERS IN MIGRATORY CONTEXT: INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO A CHRONIC EMERGENCY. A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON MENTAL DISORDERS AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE BETWEEN REGULAR AND IRREGULAR SUB-SAHARAN MIGRANTS IN NORTHERN ITALY

Migration has become a major political, social and economic phenomenon, with significant human rights consequences. The International Organization for Migration estimates that, today, there are nearly 200 million international migrants worldwide. According to the International Labour Organization, 90 millions of them are migrant workers. Although migration has implications for the right to health in both home and host countries, the focus here is on migrants in host countries. Their enjoyment of the right to health is often limited merely because they are migrants, as well as owing to other factors such as discrimination, language and cultural barriers, or their legal status. While they all face particular problems linked to their specific status and situation (undocumented or irregular migrants and migrants held in detention being particularly at risk), many migrant will face similar obstacles to realizing their human rights, including their right to health. This thesis aims to investigate the possible repercussions on migrants’ health without an Italian residence permit, thus with no access to the Italian healthcare system. During my studies, I have experienced all but a suitable solution to this daily social and medical issue, which is incorrectly labeled as being in a state of emergency. Therefore, I decided to explore the healthcare system related to the context of migration from the general practitioner’s point of view, searching for new approaches for these patients. A general practitioner is a medical doctor who takes care of the patient in his or her total being. Physical and psychological. May the patient be an elder, a fragile person, or a migrant, he or she is most simply a patient. We as doctors are used to treat the disease, a classifiable condition affecting an organ or organism. The illness instead is a subjective negative experience that comes with ill health. In some cases, illness is a product of disease although one can be made ill through psychosomatic processes without a disease. It is necessary to treat the patients in their complexity. That is why I picked and worked on this project. I believe in general practitioners, rooted in their territory, attentive to the patient’s context, defender of the individual and collective health, supporter of the right to health for everyone, promoter of inclusive health politics.