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dc.contributor.advisorBalsvik, Randi Rønning
dc.contributor.authorLoo, Pei Shan
dc.date.accessioned2017-10-09T12:43:31Z
dc.date.available2017-10-09T12:43:31Z
dc.date.issued2017-05-15
dc.description.abstractWith the unprecedented international migration around the world, policies that restrict immigrants' health care access have become prevailing. In 2014, the amendment to The Fees Act (Medical) for Foreigners 1951 had further hindered the health care access of undocumented pregnant women. This qualitative study aimed to obtain perspectives of health and non-health actors regarding the implications of the amendment to the undocumented pregnant women. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The findings show that Malaysians perceive as a threat when the competition for public health care access rises with the growing number of immigrants. The amendment was used to save the health care budget and to control the immigrant population. Scapegoating immigrants has nonetheless masked the weak governance and poor development of the health care system that has stretched the health care budget. The amendment is likely to show immediate cost saving. However, women are highly prone to various pregnancy complications without adequate maternal care, and may eventually result in increased hospital fees. The high medical cost will increase the difficulty in public health control as any outbreak of infectious disease can cost the government massive amounts of money. Also, provision of family planning services among the immigrants can directly improve maternal and child survival and extend women's work productivity from unwanted pregnancy. Stemming the undocumented immigrant pool not only can reduce job competition for Malaysia’s bottom 50%, the collected levy among the newly documented immigrants can in turn subsidies the health care services for immigrant group themselves. The presented findings are based on the perspectives from health and non-health actors in Malaysia. To conclude, this study shows a profound need for health and immigration policy reform. The effort is not just for the health of undocumented pregnant women, but most importantly for the economic and health benefit of Malaysians in general.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10037/11643
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherUiT Norges arktiske universiteten_US
dc.publisherUiT The Arctic University of Norwayen_US
dc.rights.accessRightsopenAccessen_US
dc.rights.holderCopyright 2017 The Author(s)
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0en_US
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)en_US
dc.subject.courseIDSVF-3901
dc.subjectMigrationen_US
dc.subjectundocumented womenen_US
dc.subjectPublic Healthen_US
dc.subjectmaternal healthen_US
dc.subjectPublic Healthen_US
dc.subjecthealth policyen_US
dc.subjectVDP::Medisinske Fag: 700::Klinisk medisinske fag: 750::Allmennmedisin: 751en_US
dc.subjectVDP::Medisinske Fag: 700::Klinisk medisinske fag: 750::Allmennmedisin: 751en_US
dc.titleMaternal care of undocumented pregnant women under the Fees Act (Medical) for Foreigners 1951. Perspectives of health and non-health actorsen_US
dc.typeMaster thesisen_US
dc.typeMastergradsoppgaveen_US


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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)