Ensuring access to health care is a key component of UNHCR’s protection activities and programming.
We promote an integration model, enabling refugees and asylum-seekers to access national health care.
In Egypt, UNHCR’s public health program emphasizes primary health care and support for secondary, tertiary, and life-saving health care. In 2016, the Ministry of Health and Population and UNHCR jointly signed two Memoranda of Understanding granting refugees and asylum-seekers of all nationalities equal access to public primary, secondary, and emergency health care as Egyptian citizens.
We focus our support on primary public facilities in areas hosting high numbers of refugees. Through our partners, we also provide health care for patients with chronic diseases, offer psycho-social and mental health support, and secondary and referral care for life-saving conditions for all refugees.
In areas with high concentrations of refugees and asylum-seekers, UNHCR supports national efforts to improve the quality of services to meet the needs of refugees as well as those of the host population. This entails strengthening the existing national health systems through capacity-building and provision of equipment.