New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (NYHHC) and Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, together with immigration groups of various ethnicities, reiterated that all hospitals in New York City respect patient’s privacy. Medical staff will not ask patients about their immigration status. Any person, regardless of his or her status, has a right to seek medical help, including hospital visits and emergency services.
Alan Aviles, president of NYHHC and Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Guillermo Linares, held a joint press conference at Elmhurst Hospital. They said that there are an estimated half-a-million illegal immigrants and 2.9 million foreign-born legal immigrants in New York City; all of them are entitled to medical services, just like citizens. They strongly advised all New Yorkers to seek medical help whenever they need it without worrying about status. All hospitals have to protect their patients’ privacy and abide by the confidentiality law.
To help new immigrants understand their rights, NYHHC and Immigration Affairs is launching an education campaign, with written materials printed in nine languages: Chinese, English, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Haitian Creole, Urdu, Bengali and Albanian.
The Chinese version tells people not to be afraid of going to clinics, hospitals, or emergency rooms. The government has not passed any new law to regulate immigrants and they should seek medical help without worrying about consequences.
In a letter addressed to all New York immigrants, NYHHC emphasized that all public hospitals respect patients’ privacy and no one of the 39,000 NYHHC employees can nor will disclose this information to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service) or police. It urges people not to let unfounded fear prevent them or their children from getting necessary medical help.
The hospitals only ask for personal information in order to process insurance requests quickly and accurately. All hospital employees are bound by the privacy law and will be punished if they disclose any personal information.
NYHHC oversees 11 public hospitals and 80 community clinics and long-term care facilitates. More than 1.3 million people were served by the system last year and 45,000 of them do not have health insurance.
For more information, people should call 311 or visit its website
