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Language
English (en)
Date of Award
5-6-2014
Author's Department
International and Area Studies
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (A.B.)
Restricted/Unrestricted
Restricted
Abstract
This thesis seeks to represent the experience of immigrants in the French health care system. Based on qualitative interviews conducted in Toulouse, France from January to May 2013, the paper draws upon patient accounts, doctor perspectives, and academic literature to construct a narrative surrounding the intersection of health and immigration. I begin with a detailed description of the Consultation Médico-Social d'Orientation, the Toulouse-based clinic in which the research was conducted. This clinic takes a ""medico-social" approach by seeking to holistically address the difficulties of its patients, realizing that social problems can have medical repercussions. Next, I explain how this medico-social philosophy was formed by Toulouse's history and medical actors. Although serving as a model of how France could improve health care for immigrants, it is exceptional and not necessarily representative of French medicine in general. Subsequently, I divide immigrants in France into three categories: labor migrants, familial migrants, and political/medical refugees. By framing patient interviews into these schemas, the paper explains how a person's reasons for migrating to France profoundly affect their experience in French society and French health care. This thesis concludes that health care provision is just as political as it is medical, and that Toulouse's medico-social clinics, currently a small-scale supplement to public hospitals, provide an example of how other French cities could better adapt their health care infrastructure to meet the needs of immigrants and other culturally diverse groups.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/j71k-rt09
Mentor
John Bowen
Additional Advisors
Peter Benson
Recommended Citation
Meeks, Monica, "Liberté, Egalité, Santé: The Intersection of Immigration and Health Care in France and Toulouse’s Medico-Social Solution" (2014). Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses. 172.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/j71k-rt09
Comments
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