| dc.description.abstract | Background: Irregular migrants face numerous barriers to accessing healthcare in Norway, and one of them is the issue of payment. The Health Centre for Undocumented Migrants is experiencing that the hospitals have an arbitrary practice of demanding payment from irregular migrants for treatment they are entitled to receive. The Oslo University Hospital and Akershus University Hospital seek to improve their practice. Therefore, they have initiated this master thesis that aims to investigate how the hospitals navigate the rights to healthcare for irregular migrants and the issue of payment given today’s laws and regulations. Method: This thesis is a qualitative study that uses an explorative approach. The hospital guidelines for registering and invoicing foreign patients were collected. In addition, hospital staff and staff from the HCUM have been interviewed. The total sample size is fourteen interviews and fourteen documents. The guidelines and interviews were thoroughly analysed through thematic analysis. Results and findings: First, the thesis presents the hypothetical “ideal” handling of registering and invoicing irregular migrants found in the hospitals’ guidelines. Following, a presentation is given of the five most interesting points of intersection where the guidelines collide with practice: 1) The administrative organisation of the hospital, 2) Fluctuating responsibility of the assessment of solvency, 3) Rights versus payment, 4) The presumption of an active patient, and 5) Identity, documentation requirements and address as barriers. Discussion and conclusion: This thesis discusses how today’s borders are enacted to defend the nation-states’ economic interests to ensure the welfare of the nation-states’ citizens and how, in this process, irregular migrants are categorised as outsiders. Furthermore, the assessment of solvency, and lack thereof, is discussed, and I argue that no one knows who should do these assessments or how they should be done. Moreover, irregular migrants fall outside the established categories in the administrative hospital system and thereby become ‘others’. The thesis discusses how different degrees of othering come to being and how the standardisation of the hospital routines strengthens the process of othering. Through this, the hospitals are reproducing irregular migrants’ marginalisation in the health system. Lastly, economic, medical-ethical, juridical, and political perspectives informing the issue of access to healthcare for irregular migrants are discussed. This includes the differences between rights to healthcare and coverage of it, the discrepancy between medical ethics and restrictive legislation, and current political debates related to the issue. | eng |