Danish doctor helps treat discriminated against immigrants

The young woman, who married a Danish farmer she met on a safari in Tanzania, moved to western Denmark and arrived exhausted.

A local doctor diagnosed her as suffering from “culture shock,” Sodeman recalled.

“Her condition worsened and she was admitted to the hospital on the weekend I was working. Three weeks later she passed away. She was HIV positive and had tuberculosis.”

Her case “proves that the concept of ‘culture shock’ can be deadly,” Soedeman added.

Medical discrimination, sometimes translated into English as “ethnic pain” or “cultural symptoms” in Denmark, can lead to patients not receiving the care they need. “When doctors are faced with someone who doesn’t look like them and express unusual symptoms, they assume there’s nothing wrong with them,” Sodeman says.

According to Mikala Bendiksen, head of the Refugee Welfare Office, this attitude is the result of underlying xenophobia.

She said it’s impossible to quantify how often that happens.

However, a recent report by the Danish Institute for Human Rights found that 84% of ethnic minorities experience some form of discrimination or prejudice based on their appearance.

Ethnologist Nina Halberg says many foreign-born patients experience discrimination, but most are reluctant to label it as such, preferring to dismiss it as a “bad experience.” said.

“People born outside Denmark don’t ask for anything because the health care system in Denmark is better than in the country they left behind,” she explained.

He said the system was not designed to accommodate different cultures, which automatically leads to inequality.

The system “emphasizes personal responsibility” and states that “you are responsible for your own health and must participate in the process.”

To remedy this, Sodemann’s clinic at Odense University Hospital offers longer consultations reserved for patients whose medical problems have not been resolved in the public system.

The clinic has treated about 250 patients a year since it opened more than 10 years ago.

To get an appointment, “it’s not enough just to have a foreign-sounding name; you have to have a medical problem that no one else has been able to solve.”

The same goes for Ali Hod Lozi from Lebanon, who was sent to see specialists one after another after an accident at work.

At Sodeman’s clinic, Rozi, who is in his 50s and has never attended school, said nurses and doctors came to see him and listen to his story, and that he was scheduled to undergo back surgery soon.

“For three years, many doctors couldn’t help me. Here they are listening to me and we are starting to find a solution.”

“In a hospital or general practitioner’s office, you can talk for 10 minutes about just one problem, which is often very difficult because patients usually have physical, psychological and social problems,” says Nursing. Master Ngoc Nguyen explained.

She has worked at Sodeman’s clinic for more than 10 years, and new patients are booked every hour.

“They often tell us, ‘Nobody’s ever heard of that,'” she smiles.

Sodemann said the mentality of Denmark’s health care system has improved slightly in recent years.

Meanwhile, the Danske Regional Agency, which oversees Denmark’s health care system, insists the problem is primarily a language one.

“Foreigners often have difficulties with the Danish language, so it is important to ensure that an interpreter is available when accessing medical services,” the group told AFP in a written statement.

However, it acknowledged that “more work remains to be done to ensure equal access and opportunity for treatment for people from minority backgrounds.”

CBW/PO/GV