IMMIGRANT FAMILIES GO AND GET TREATMENT IN THEIR HOME COUNTRIES BECAUSE OF NHS WAITING LISTS
The Daily Telegraph (p11) reports that a study on migrant children has shown that many eastern European families kept strong ties to their home countries and even maintained their local doctor and dentist because of NHS waiting lists.
Researchers from Strathclyde University studied the lives of almost 60 children, all of whose parents settled in different parts of Scotland. The study was backed by the Economic and Social Research Council, says the paper.
As several families spoke of waiting until school holidays to go and get medical treatment in their home country, “Scottish doctors said the problem may boil down to cultural differences, with far greater access to specialists in many eastern European countries”, reports The Daily Telegraph.
The paper quotes, among others, a Polish mother who told the researchers: “My child has asthma and they say you need to wait two months for a specialist, so I just decided to take a flight to Poland and see the doctor we know there.”