Medical Outcasts

Gendered and Institutionalized Xenophobia in Undocumented Forced Migrants' Emergency Health Care

Roxane Richter

 

Synopsis

As witnessed through the firsthand experiences of a frontline activist and international medical aid practitioner, this biosocial political study gives voice to the inequities in undocumented Mexican and Zimbabwean women’s emergency healthcare access and treatment in Houston, United States of America, and Johannesburg, South Africa. As a construct of feminist transdisciplinary fieldwork, this research utilizes methodological pluralism and biosocial disparities to examine constructs of “social determinants” or “social origins” of women’s suffering, disease, and healthcare access.

Review

Medical Outcasts is much more than a comparative case study of the need for emergency medical services by Mexican women in the U.S. and Zimbabwean women in South Africa—all immigrants without legal status. It raises profound question of gender inequity, human rights, global ethics and survival. - William P. Brandon

Author

Roxane Richter is president of World Missions Possible. She is an experienced voice in disaster, healthcare rights and gender issues.