Denmark's Doctors Helping Cure Discriminated Migrants

Odense, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Feb, 2024) Several clinics in Denmark are specialising in treating non-Western patients who often experience discrimination in the country's public healthcare system, known for its efficiency but accused of failing these patients.

"The fate of a patient originally from East Africa made me understand that we can and must do better," said Morten Sodemann, who heads the oldest of three healthcare centres solely treating immigrants in the Scandinavian country of 5.9 million people.

Married to a Danish farmer whom she met while he was on safari in Tanzania, the young woman moved to western Denmark where she arrived exhausted.

A local doctor diagnosed her as suffering from "culture shock", Sodemann recalled.

"Her condition deteriorated and she was hospitalised the weekend I was on duty. Three weeks later she died. She was HIV positive and had tuberculosis.

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Her case is "proof that the concept of 'culture shock' can be fatal," added Sodemann.

Medical discrimination, which in Denmark sometimes goes by terms that could be translated into English as "ethnic pain" or "cultural symptoms", can lead to patients not getting the care they need.

"When faced with people who don't look like you and who express their symptoms differently than you're used to, the doctor decides there's nothing wrong," Sodemann said.

Attitudes like this are the result of latent xenophobia, according to the head of Refugees Welcome, Michala Bendixen.

She said it was impossible to quantify how frequently it occurs.

But a recent report by the Danish Institute for Human Rights showed that 84 percent of ethnic minorities had experienced some type of discrimination or prejudice based on their appearance.