The impact of the British immigration acts (immigration control) on health and access to health care

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Acha, E., 2022. The impact of the British immigration acts (immigration control) on health and access to health care. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

The right to health is a fundamental human right enshrined in both national and international instruments to which Britain is a party. Some of these instruments do consider refugees and other forms of migrants as a vulnerable group of persons and emphasised on the protection of their right to health. The impacts on migrants’ rights to health is presented by this research via the role played by the immigration control processes put in place by the British state, specifically in England and Wales, and on a group of sub-Saharan African, and this research uses the outcome to commend, recommend and advocate for a better life for the migrants.

Generally, I argued in the thesis that in England and Wales, the British state uses its immigration control policies and the platform of international instruments to exhibits its imperialist tendencies on the migrant population and their states of origin and thereby infringing their rights to health.

The theoretical background of this thesis is drawn from African Marxism through concepts specific to Africa, to facilitate the interpretation of the practical experiences of participants of the health impacts of the British immigration control, with the prime motive in assessing the extent to which migrants’ right to health is respected in the UK. This is done through a qualitative data being analysed using Marxism as a cardinal approach to get a deeper interpretation of the instruments involved. It should also be noted that this research happens to be one of the rare attempts in gathering empirical data from African asylum seekers and refugees in England and Wales.

The researcher uses a mixed method which places the migrants at the centre by employing the inductive approach in data collection for a better understanding of the impacts of the immigration control on them. The researcher is part of the research, on this ground, the participatory approach is used to assess and understand the experience of other migrants like him. To concretise and fill the gaps of the data collected from participants, the research further explores the positions of participants through interaction within a focus group.

Twenty-eight migrants of sub-Saharan African origin and of different categories (categories of migrants) were selected amongst the inhabitants of Cardiff and Birmingham of Wales and England to take part in this research and two focus group conversations with one from each town and made up of both migrants and professionals were organised to help the researcher explore the position of participants as a group. Six professionals from the fields of law, health and social work were also involved for the purposes of juxtaposing the data collected from other participants.

Of the interviews were carried on using the theoretical thematic analysis and the ontological positions of the participants, which triggered the utilisation of a multi-perspective analysis which requires the sampling of both ontological and Marxist perspectives.

The research came out with the findings that migrants’ right to health in England and Wales is affected as a result of their origin, the status accorded to them, migrants’ housing, racism and discrimination. The research in its’ conclusion arrived at the position that this approach of the British immigration control is aimed at restricting and limiting migrants who are in the UK and those in the process of coming over to the UK and recommended the need for a revision.

Item Type:

Thesis

Creators:

Acha, E.

Contributors:

Name	Role	NTU ID	ORCID
Vickers, T.	Thesis supervisor	SGY3VICKETB	orcid.org/0000-0001-5430-290X
Kellezi, B.	Thesis supervisor	PSY3KELLEB	orcid.org/0000-0003-4825-3624
Gibson, L.	Thesis supervisor	CRI3GIBSOL	orcid.org/0000-0002-1220-8680