Burmese refugee experience accessing health care in New Delhi: a qualitative study

Provision of health services to urban refugees is challenging given wide dispersal and tenuous legal status, particularly in regions where host population urban residents also face limited access to health care. This study aims to understand Burmese refugee and asylum-seeker experiences accessing health care in New Delhi, India. During March 2012, investigators from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative in collaboration with the Chin Human Rights Organization conducted focus group discussions and key informant interviews in New Delhi. Qualitative analysis identified the following three overlapping categories with regard to health care access: discrimination, poor quality health services, and financial barriers to obtaining health care. Of these, discrimination is the most prominent. Efforts to provide health services to urban refugees in New Delhi must address discrimination, in addition to advocating for access to national health systems and reduction of financial barriers, in order to be acceptable to the urban refugee community