Medical Justice exposes and challenges inadequate healthcare provision to immigration detainees.

We deal with individual detainee cases at a rate of about 1,000 a year.  Most of this work is done by volunteers who include ex-detainees, doctors, lawyers and other experts.

Medical Justice is a charity (number 1132072), is not government-funded, is not qualified or registered to give immigration advice, and is not part of the NHS (although we strongly support it).

In my work with Medical Justice as a barrister, my experience has been that a culture has evolved in which people held in detention centres are perceived as having less value than those with legal rights to be in this country. Many detainees describe a feeling of being treated like “nothing” or like “dirt”. Such a perception is hurtful to those involved and it violates their dignity as human beings.

But the problem is not only that people in detention are perceived as being of less value, it is that they also come to be treated as such. All of those who work with detainees share experiences of neglect, discrimination and abuse on a scale that is saddening and frightening. I see Medical Justice’s work as reminding ourselves that we must treat all people with equal value, not just for those people’s sakes, but for the sake of our society.

We have now assisted over 1,000 individuals held in detention. We have had numerous successes in changing policy and practice in detention centres.  We have a number of publications to our name.  We have managed to raise awareness of the problems in detention centres through our work and media activities.

I hope that this booklet may give some insight into the scale of the problems we have encountered and why we are working so hard to bring them to an end. We believe that the harm being caused by these institutions is so widespread that the only solution is to close them down. In time we will succeed in that aim. In the interim, we work to reform the institutions and to stand up for the rights of those held within them. 

I sincerely hope you will support the work of Medical Justice."