Sociological Perspectives of Migrant Health Disparities and Access to Healthcare Services during and beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic: Voices of Immigrant and Refugee Women in Greece

Abstract

As the COVID-19 pandemic, as grew into a global health crisis, it created perilous and uncertain situations for vulnerable groups such as migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in the context of measures restricting mobility, social, economic, and educational life. This article, using the fields Sociology of Migration and Sociology of Health, focuses on female immigrants and refugees and their health and access to healthcare services in Greece. According to the results of in-depth interviews, based on the findings of two research projects carried out between 2020-2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic: “Voices of Immigrant Women” (VIW) project (Erasmus+ 2020-1-ES01-KA203-082364) (2020-2022) and “Local Alliance for Integration (LION/GSRI/University of West Attica/81018): Migrant and Refugee integration into local societies in times of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain and Greece” (2021-2022) implementing a qualitative methodology, migrant and refugee women migrants are entrapped in a frame of invisibility, precarious living and exploitative working conditions and discrimination. On the one hand, one of the greatest challenges that Greece is currently facing is the existence of significant disparities in the health services provided to the population in general, and on the other hand, the problem is particularly severe for migrants. The research emphasizes that the health services to female immigrants and refugees are included in an elliptical system of Public Health policy which fails to address significant claims and fields while the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified vulnerability.

Harsh realities of female migration during the COVID epoch

“…The study by Guadagno (2020) explains the helplessness of migrant workers to cope with the health crisis due to inadequate access to basic healthcare facilities and financial instability, rendering them the most vulnerable sections and necessitating immediate attention from the concerned authorities. Likewise, Fouskas (2023) has revealed that protracted health‐related issues and insufficient healthcare services for female immigrants in Greece pose a menace to their job security. Assessing whether the pandemic aggravated the vulnerabilities among women more than men, Rukmini (2020) indicates the widening gender gap as an estimated 40% of women in India lost their jobs during the lockdown.…”