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. 2007 May;33(5):269-72.
doi: 10.1136/jme.2005.014829.

Human rights and the national interest: migrants, healthcare and social justice

Phillip Cole  1
Affiliations

Human rights and the national interest: migrants, healthcare and social justice

Phillip Cole. J Med Ethics. 2007 May.

Abstract

The UK government has recently taken steps to exclude certain groups of migrants from free treatment under the National Health Service, most controversially from treatment for HIV. Whether this discrimination can have any coherent ethical basis is questioned in this paper. The exclusion of migrants of any status from any welfare system cannot be ethically justified because the distinction between citizens and migrants cannot be an ethical one.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None.

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