The care for asylum seekers is insufficient in most crisis emergency reception locations, conclude researchers from the Dutch Red Cross, Dokters van de Wereld and expertise center Pharos. For example, there would be bad housing, lack of privacy, insufficient toilets and showers and long waiting times without having anything to do. “The crisis emergency shelter in its current form is sickening for residents.”
In May, about seven thousand asylum seekers lived in the so-called crisis emergency shelter. The researchers visited locations consisting of tents, empty office buildings, sports areas and warehouses. The locations are arranged by municipalities and the security regions and are actually intended for short-term shelter. “In practice, it turns out that people often stay at one location for months without a view of another place to stay.”
The research, which will be presented to members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon, states, among other things, that infectious diseases such as scabies, diarrhea and respiratory infections are common in locations where residents have to live in close proximity to each other. “You have large groups of people with different backgrounds, small houses. And then scabies sets in, but that also happens among students”, is what emerges in conversations with location managers and social workers. Treatment is made more difficult by the layout of the locations. Sometimes ‘rooms’ are only separated by curtains, which also poses a privacy problem.
Minimal requirements
Residents also suffer from psychological complaints, for example because they have experienced war in their country of origin. “There is not much to do during the day. People are not allowed to work or even volunteer, many children do not go to school. Added to this is the uncertainty about the asylum procedure,” the researchers sum up. “Additionally, this leads to serious health risks for the residents of crisis emergency shelters.”
Not only is it concluded that the current way of crisis emergency care is making residents sick, it is also “burdensome for professionals, who feel that they have to work against the rocks”.
The researchers spoke to more than 130 residents at 9 crisis emergency shelter locations, dozens of healthcare providers, 13 location managers and 11 policymakers. In the report, they argue for improvement and the creation of clarity about the minimum requirements that the shelter must meet. It is not the first time that the alarm has been sounded: the Council for Refugees, among others, has already done this.