I had an opportunity to meet with Sigrid Becker-Wirth of MediNetz-Bonn. She is a remarkable woman. Sigrid had worked as a high school teacher in Bonn, but had to leave her job because of complications from Multiple Sclerosis. She had already been inspired by the life of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was murdered in part due to his concern for the poor and the outcasts, and she came to view the undocumented in Germany as kindred souls with those who suffered in Central America. She felt she was being called to act on their behalf.
Her answer was to co-found MediNetz-Bonn, joining a network of MediNetz organizations located throughout Germany that help the serve undocumented. MediNetz-Bonn is located in a building appropriately called Oscar Romero Haus. Every Monday people come to her office for assistance. They are of many different ethnicities but all share the status of being illegalized, as Sigrid put it.
MediNetz-Bonn cannot help the patients directly. Instead, Sigrid built relationships with people who, like her, believe that healthcare is a human right. She then got to work on finding physicians who would treat the undocumented for a very low price whenever MediNetz-Bonn refers a patient to them. Eventually Sigrid got 80 doctors in and around Bonn to participate.
Of course, as is the case with Casa de Salud, many times a single doctor in his/her exam room cannot resolve a patient's situation. So Sigrid went back to work and eventually got five hospitals to accept MediNetz-Bonn patients. The hospitals receive payment from the patient on what amounts to a sliding scale. Just as important, they agree to ignore the "duty to denounce," which typically would require hospital personnel other than doctors do inform the authorities when they encounter someone who is not in the country legally.
MediNetz-Bonn has been a boon to the approximately 4,000 undocumented people in the Bonn area. Information about medical services is available in multiple languages. When a person needs a referral, they speak with a MediNetz-Bonn volunteer who fills out a referral form. The patient uses this as their "ticket" for an appointment with the appropriate doctor. And should a patient need a service for which a hospital cannot afford to deeply discount (cancer treatment, for example), MediNetz-Bonn draws from its fundraising done exclusively to help defray such costs.
This is wonderful work, and thanks to my experience at Casa I'm in a position to particularly appreciate what Sigrid has achieved. Still, her efforts - like those at Casa - have the unfortunate side effect of relieving politicians from finding long term solutions to these problems. As Heide Castañeda (an anthropologist who has done extensive work in Germany) writes, "[These organizations] effectively remove responsibility of the state to address poverty and the needs of marginal communities by de-politicizing the issues, relying on low-cost local labor, and...often fail to address the reasons why those services are needed in the first place."
Sigrid is clearly aware of this, which is why she simultaneously works with politicians in search of "lasting solutions." For example, she is lobbying for a real "right to treatment." Currently any person can get basic treatment by obtaining a healthcare card issued by the Social Services authority. But that office works closely with the Office for Foreigners, which registers the person, making them subject to deportation.
A lasting solution is still absent, but Sigrid is heartened by the three-year model project recently launched by the regional government of Lower Saxony that in two cities, including the capital city of Hanover, allows undocumented people to receive care without registration.
Nevertheless, Sigrid realizes it will be a long term effort. Most regional and state governments fear that it would be financially unsustainable to provide full access to immigrants, especially if it resulted in an even greater influx of people when word spreads that a particular region is providing assistance. But for Sigrid, it is about human rights, and most especially, the absolute right of a human being to get care when he or she is sick.
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