Health examinations and health services for asylum seekers in Sweden

• With an influx of several hundred thousand refugees during the last two decades, care for asylum seekers and refugees has become an important part of health and medical care in Sweden. The Swedish government spent 377 million Swedish crowns (SEK) on medical expenses for asylum seekers and refugees in 1990–91, 427 million SEK in 1991–92 and 804 million in 1992–93 (1 US$ is approximately 6 SEK). The annual cost per asylum seeker was 11,387 SEK in 1992, to be compared with the average cost of health and medical care for Swedish residents in the age 0–49 years which was around 8,000 SEK at that time (1). Despite the large amounts of money and the large number of patients involved in the medical reception programme for refugees in Sweden in recent years, there has been little research about the quality and adequacy of this programme. The Swedish reception programme for asylum seekers is centered around state-run refugee camps in different parts of the country. To be able to describe the structure and content of the health care service offered to asylum seekers, a semi-structured questionnaire was sent to all health units in refugee camps in Sweden in May 1995. Health units in 30 of the 33 refugee camps in Sweden responded to the questions about the health care service offered to asylum seekers (2).

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