• Case-work
• Research
• Negotiating agreements and positive changes in immigration detention policy
• Advice bulletins
• Parliamentary Lobbying
• Education / awareness raising
• Training sessions
• Collaboration and dissemination

Case-work

Medical evidence
Medical Justice challenge instances of medical evidence produced by qualified medics being ignored by the Home office and immigration courts, challenges instances of medical findings by unqualified Home Office officials and immigration judges, and writes medico legal reports.

Referrals generally come to Medical Justice when all else has failed ; the detainee’s legal representative cannot get legal aid funding to progress a case or finance a medical report, or has simply not attempted to get a medical report.  Many detainees have not been able to get a legal aid solicitor and are being charged thousands of pounds, often of disastrously bad quality, or simply do not have any legal representation at all. 
About making referrals to Medical Justice

Dealing with medical abuse in detention
Including denial of medication and treatment, access to hospital, testing and test results.

Assault cases
Assessing detainees’ injuries after an assault by guards in the detention centre, or in transit to other places of detention, or an airport.

Research

Research is undertaken by Medical Justice volunteer health campaigners, medics, students and academics who collate information about healthcare in immigration detention, some of which is a product of Medical Justice case-work. 

Medical Justice research informs all of the other work we do and has been used by other organisations.

Negotiating positive changes in immigration detention policy

Medical Justice has negotiated several agreements and policy changes with the Home Office that have made detention somewhat less harmful. 
Policy changes MJ has negotiated so far

We are able to create formidable negotiation teams, including health campaigners, doctors, nurses, eminent psychiatrists and ex-detainees who have been medically abused. In it’s first year of existence, Medical Justice has secured more face-time with senior Home Office decision-makers on issues of healthcare in immigration detention than many other organisations, which is a major achievement especially considering we have no paid staff and no formal funding.

Medical Justice challenges the almost inevitable and detrimental gap between the negotiated policy change and how immigration detainees are actually treated in practice.  The bulk of Medical Justice’s work is getting the Home Office to implement its own policies.

We feel we have particular leverage in accessing Home Office decision-makers because of our unique profile of medical and legal expertise, coupled with detainee support resources ; we have the ability to identify harmful policies, legally challenge them, and help vulnerable detainees to embrace their legal and medical rights – within hours when necessary on individual cases.  We go on to secure permanent policy changes and challenge failures to enforce them.  We believe that despite our lack of resources, our success-rate has demonstrated to the Home Office that we cannot be ignored.

Advice bulletins

Medical Justice issues email bulletins to networks involved in advocating for immigration detainees’ health, including information about agreements and positive changes in immigration detention policy negotiated by Medical Justice and others, recent case-law and medical standards.  The bulletins spell out the positive implications and how to make use of them. 

We also write and distribute information leaflets to immigration detainees.
Advice for detainees

Media work

Opportunities for exposure in the main-stream media have been largely events-driven ; hungerstrikes, riots, and inquests.  Also, publication of reports and inquiries by the Inspector of Prisons, the Home Office and others.  Medical Justice doctors have published articles in various medical journals.
Unmet Medical Needs in Detention

Parliamentary Lobbying

Medical Justice has succeeded in getting parliamentarians to include immigration detainee healthcare in debates, parliamentary questions, and committee inquiries, and, to challenge misleading statements and submissions by Home Office representatives. Medical Justice has arranged for MPs to visit patients in detention centres and frequently gets parliamentarians involved in individuals cases.
Medical Justice gets many PQs asked

Following a catalogue of suicides and alleged mistreatment, Medical Justice lobbied for the first ever inquiry into healthcare at Yarl's Wood Removal Centre and specifically into how a Ugandan woman was reduced to a state of mental collapse during a period of seven months in detention. The Inquiry was conducted by HM Inspector of Prisons and sought to establish whether the suspected brain damage suffered by a detainee, was caused by mistreatment while she was held in detention and by aborted attempts to return her to Uganda, where she says she had been being imprisoned, raped and tortured by soldiers. The detainee was eventually released from detention into a psychiatric hospital for 6 months.  Her ability to ever lead an independent life is in question and she is still facing deportation.
Medical Justice lobbied for the first ever inquiry into healthcare at detention centre

The inquiry’s findings lead the local MP, Alistair Burt, to say "[The inquiry] was 'appalling' in what it revealed and should be a source of shame to those involved .. I am not totally surprised at the results, though shocked and genuinely appalled at the depth of failures revealed and inadequacies of those with care and responsibility for detainees ... [IND's] repeated attempts to removed sick detainees went beyond comprehension and decency".

The inquiry was the first of it’s kind and concurred with three of Medical Justice’s key “demands” ;
1.    Transfer detention centre healthcare responsibility from private companies to the NHS
2.    Enforcement of Home Office's own policies to not normally detain the particularly vulnerable

3.    An end to obstruction to appropriate healthcare

Education / awareness raising

Medical Justice members do “talks” to interested groups about its work – e.g. students, faith groups, and professional medical associations.  Medical Justice members are frequently “speakers” at public meetings, conferences and in the House of Commons.

Training sessions

Medical Justice hold Training Days for medics, including writing medico-legal reports that are deemed “credible” by the courts.  We also hold Training Days for visitors and doctors to immigration detainees, including best use of the Medical Justice network resources.

Collaboration and dissemination