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| Docs not Cops |
Docs not Cops is a campaign of medical staff and patients resisting the regulation passed in 2017 by the HNS England requiring ID checks on all patients requiring non-emergency care, a measure promulgated following the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts, aimed at policing migrants. On the grounds that they've been trained to provide care universally to all who need it, the groups of medical staff in hospitals have been refusing to act as the extended arm of the immigration service. Furthermore, they have been refusing the introduction of charges for migrants, as that would plant the seed for further expansion of the charging system to other patients.
To this effect, Docs not Cops have organised the campaign Patients Not Passports, providing instruction kits for medical professionals and community members to help migrants receive medical assistance without the ID check and to help them avoid unwarranted and unnecessary charges. The campaign was organised in partnership with Migrants Organise and Medact, another medical profession organisation contesting the social, political and economic conditions which damage health, deepen health inequalities and threaten peace and security.
By organising the collective disobedience of doctors and nurses, and working together with healthcare activists, teachers, workers and voters, Docs not Cops have acted to uphold the principle of universal right to free health care, while demanding an end to securitisation and neoliberalisation of health care.