Thuledi Makua
University of South Africa, South Africa
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Arch Med
The South African constitution outlines that migrants have a constitutional right of access to basic services including health care. However, the same constitution has not been very clear on what happens to migrants with false documentation or those who have entered the country illegally and resides in the slums of cities. The purpose of this research was to explore health care challenges faced by HIV positive undocumented Zimbabwean foreign nationals in South Africa. A descriptive and interpretive phenomenological research methodology was used to gather data from the HIV positive undocumented Zimbabwean foreign nationals in Johannesburg, South Africa. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select the HIV positive undocumented Zimbabwean foreign nationals. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted to elicit the challenges that these foreign nationals experience in Johannesburg. Some participants were identified as they came for consultation at the clinics while others, through snowball, were tracked in their residential flats. This led to an understanding of the phenomena within the naturalistic context of occurrence. Content analysis was used to analyse data gathered from the 20 participants. The results reported that due to lack of proper documentation of the participants to reside in South Africa and fear that they would be caught in health care facilities this had led to poor access. This led to participants being non-compliance, irregular check-ups, falsification of documents and use of gazetted alternative therapies. It is within this premise that this research strongly recommends for a more embracive policy that will consider the undocumented migrants.
E-mail:
makuatp@unisa.ac.za
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