“A threat to health”: associations support the right to stay for care, that LR wants to delete
Six major patient associations denounced Tuesday a bill for the Republicans (LR) aimed at abolishing the right of stay for care, which must be examined on February 6 in the National Assembly in plenary session.
“If it was adopted”, this proposal “would condemn thousands of seriously sick foreign people in France in France,” said France Assos Health associations, Renalo, Aid, French Diabetics, Rare Diseases, SOS hepatitis in a state .
The bill was rejected by the Assembly’s Law Commission on January 29, but it appears on the agenda as part of the LR parliamentary niche. She is in eighth position in the agenda, which very strongly reduces her chances of being examined.
System implemented in the 1990s
The right of stay for care had been set up in the late 1990s to allow foreigners already present in France and HIV bearers to regularize their situation and to treat themselves.
The authors of the LR bill believe that the system today concerns “foreigners who came specifically in France to benefit from the management of chronic diseases”, denouncing a “migration air call” and a “significant cost for public finances ”. According to them, “the total number of foreigners benefiting from a residence permit of this type would be around 30,000”, whether it is a first title to date or a renewal.
The associations indicate for their part that in 2023, only 3,169 people benefited from a first residence permit as such, withdrawing 25.5 % compared to 2021. The assessment of the files “is placed between the Hands of the OFII (French Office for Immigration and Integration), “they add, stressing that the” most “of the beneficiaries” have lived in France for many years “.
If Parliament adopted the bill, “people could be expelled in their country of origin where they cannot be treated”, or would be forced to request state medical aid, including access is “increasingly complex and late”. “A threat to the health of foreigners is, by extension, a threat to public health,” they argue.
