UNE Business School Seminar

12 November 2014 at 1:00 pm in Lecture Theatre 2  W40

Access to Universal Health Coverage for Migrant Populations: Case Study from Malaysia

 Sharuna Verghis, PhD

Director, Health Equity Initiatives

Malaysia

Developments in the implementation of universal health coverage (UHC) have focused largely on states’ obligations to citizens. However, migrant workers (non-citizens) fill a critical gap in the labor market and are indispensible to the host nations’ economies. Involuntary and forced migrants, specifically asylum seekers and refugees, are also an important population group for whom governments implicitly assume responsibility.

However, access to health without impoverishment for migrant populations is not always guaranteed.  An upper middle-income country, Malaysia is a major destination for migrant workers where migration has traditionally been a key driver of economic expansion.  Malaysia boasts a well-developed and equitable primary health care system.  State subsidized primary healthcare services and secondary care services cater largely to poor and rural populations.  Yet, migrant workers and refugees seeking health care are subject to a different regime although they live close to the poverty line income of the country.

This presentation will review Malaysia’s migrant health care policies along with their UHC strategies.  It emphasizes the critical consideration of political and economic contexts in the development and reform of health care.  It also argues that normative ambiguities in current UHC strategies align with contextual factors to shape unhealthy health policies for migrants.

This presentation is part of an upcoming publication by Sharuna Verghis, Pascale Allotey, and Xavier Pereira.  The original paper is a comparative analysis of country case studies from Thailand and Malaysia, examining the development of migrant health care policies and how they relate to the pursuit of UHC in these two countries.

Dr. Sharuna Verghis is a recipient of an Australian Government Endeavour Executive Fellowship.

Sponsors

UNE  (Amarjit Kaur)

Curtin University

Refugee Council of Australia

BIO:

Sharuna Verghis has been working on the issue of migration and health for more than two decades at national, regional and international levels. A public health researcher, educator, and activist, she co-founded Health Equity Initiatives in Malaysia, along with her husband, Xavier Pereira, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. Sharuna has a PhD in public health from Monash University Malaysia. Her doctoral thesis on the access of refugee women to maternal health services was a multi-disciplinary study combining international human rights law and public health.

Sharuna is visiting Australia on the Endeavour Executive Fellowship. The thematic foci of her fellowship activities are Australia’s policies related to refugees and asylum seekers and their regional impacts, and approaches and practices in Australia related to refugee health.

Contact details

Sharuna Verghis, PhD

Director | Health Equity Initiatives

26-1A, Jalan Vivekananda | Brickfields

50470 Kuala Lumpur | Malaysia

Mob: +6019-6188770 | Tel: +603-22763255 / 22724957

Fax:+603-22724854

Email:sharunaverghis@yahoo.com