Spanish government left without health insurance card to hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

Policy Response DateApril 25, 2012 Country: Spain General Type: Discrimination, Institutional discrimination, Equality/Integration Racism and discrimination phenomena: Anti-migrant/xenophobia
Groups affected / Interested in: Refugees, Asylum seekers, Africans/black people Key socio-economic/institutional areas: Policing - law enforcement, Political discourse -parties - orgs Hate speech/Racist Discourse Medium: Public Discourse, Political Discourse

The illegal immigrants were left without health insurance card.  Only be able to go to the emergency department.
The criticism of cutbacks in health, have today entered into force after its publication in the Government Gazette, not long in coming. The opposition parties and several associations attending the immigrant population, have expressed their opposition to the measure of the Government to withdraw the medical card to the undocumented.

PSOE leader, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, has called a "xenophobic" settings, while other organizations such as CEAR (Spanish Commission for Refugees) thrown to the ground the government's arguments to justify their reform NHS. "It is an unjustified measure, ineffective and unsupportive to harm foreigners more vulnerable," reported in a statement.

Under criticism, the Minister of Health, Ana Mato, today called patriotism to justify reform. "He just left without a health card that corresponds to the Spanish"

http://www.publico.es/espana/430731/mato-la-tarjeta-corresponde-a-los-espanoles