NGOs and Associations’ Rules in the Improvement of Migrants’ Financial Access to Healthcare Services in Morocco

Abstract

Migration is a crosscutting issue that exposes migrants to significant health risks, while host countries’ health and social systems are often unprepared to address their specific needs. In this context, healthcare costs pose a major financial barrier to accessing necessary services. Consequently, migrant health coverage has become a key concern for the international community, national authorities, and civil society, the latter playing a crucial role in improving access. However, migrants still face major challenges in obtaining secondary and tertiary care, due both to limited resources for their healthcare and to complex administrative procedures. The aim of our study is to analyze these obstacles, particularly financial ones, which hinder migrants’ access to healthcare in Morocco, and the role-played in this area by NGOs and associations working on behalf of migrants. Exploratory descriptive study, based on documentary analyses, questionnaires, interviews and focus groups with migrants, conducted among 25 NGOs and associations working in the migration’s health field in the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra Region, selected by purposive sampling. All the associations surveyed have difficulties meeting migrants’ requests for medicines, hospitalization, biological or radiological investigations. For this purpose, the associations’ internal funding, made up of membership fees and private donations, is the most widely used method (46%), followed by financial support from foreign partners (31%), then donations (19%). 72% of surveyed associations call for more financial support and social protection resources to better meet the healthcare needs of migrants.