Asylum Seekers & Refugees

There have been great changes in the origin and type of migration into Northampton over the last 10 years which have had significant effects on our work. 

When Maple opened in 2001, we started to register many Somali, Kosovan and Albanian asylum seekers and refugees as a result of the conflicts in those countries..   Soon after this, Northampton's official status changed in respect of placement of those claiming asylum, but there continued to be a steady influx since many people from these backgrounds came to Northampton to stay with the community already established here.

We have also had small numbers of patients, often young people, travelling here for asylum from Iraq (chiefly Kurds) and Afghanistan and some from Iran. 

In the first few years we were regularly asked to assess patients for evidence of having suffered brutality in their own countries to justify their asylum applications.   Latterly this has virtually ceased.   Post traumatic stress disorder was common.

In the subsequent years many Kosova and Albanians (chiefly young men) returned to their own country and we started to register increasing numbers of Eastern Europeans.   Some coming especially from Moldova and Romania had experienced brutality and severe deprivation. Many young women reported sexual assaults and there were also many who sought termination of pregnancy.

Although we still get many registrations from Eastern Europe these patients are now mainly economic migrants - chiefly Poles and Latvians, residents of the extended European Union whose problems are no different from our normal indiginous population.

We also have had significant numbers of people coming from other parts of Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, many of whom are political refugees though may not be labelled as such.  This group contributes mostly to our population of HIV sufferers. 

In summary, our former Asylum Seekers and Refugees have either moved on or back to their countries of origin or else (mainly in the case of our Somalis) become settled in Northampton and over time, apart from their cultural differences, no longer have the acute psychological effects of war trauma and cultural dislocation.  In terms of their medical needs they can now be considered in the same context as our other Non-UK nationals.

To see the current demographics of the practice click here to jump to the statistics section.