Migrant Tales recently wrote about the poor treatment a foreign couple received at an Eastern Helsinki health center that refused to treat their sick child. In a fresh case published by Lääkärilehti (Finnish Medical Journal), a three-week old baby suffering from respiratory problems was denied medial attention because the child didn’t have a residence permit.
Read full story (in Finnish) here.
Pediatrician Tea Nieminen was quoted as saying in the journal that “a gross mistake” is committed if an acutely ill child suffering from respiratory problems can’t get medical attention.
Just because a patient doesn’t have a residence permit shouldn’t be an excuse to not treat a patient, she said.
The father of the child, who spoke English, went to a health center before being treated by Nieminen
Nieminen, who runs a private practice, said she was “appalled” that the family came to her after being denied attention elsewhere.
According to Nieminen, medical ethics and Finnish law require doctors to treat patients in need, especially children and pregnant women, regardless of their legal status.