Health services and policies for immigrants in the context of international migration mobility: Comparison between Türkiye and Italy

The Mediterranean Basin has been a region where immigration has been intense throughout history. This region has a geography that brings together immigrant source, destination and transit countries. Nowadays, the main target of migration movements is generally European Union (EU) countries. Population movements caused by the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945) and the Cold War in the 20th century; It has led to irregular migration movements towards EU countries bordering the Mediterranean or developing countries such as Türkiye. According to UNCHR data, Türkiye is one of the countries hosting the largest immigrant population in the world. In addition, Italy hosts thousands of regular and irregular immigrants alike. This situation has caused countries to produce policies on many different points such as citizenship, health and work. The most important of these policies are the health policies implemented for immigrants. Because the health of immigrants may also be closely related to the public health of that country. Therefore, this study aims to analyse the health policies offered by Türkiye and Italy towards irregular immigrants. The limitations of the study are the selection of Türkiye, located in the east of the Mediterranean, and Italy, located in the Central Mediterranean region, as samples. In health policies, Türkiye; It has approved the "Open Door" policy and the granting of "temporary protection" status to Syrian citizens. In this context, it provides free primary health care services to all immigrants and improves the health status of Syrians under temporary protection with various projects. Italy offers universal health care covering irregular immigrants, regardless of their legal status. It involves the integration of regional administration and public-private healthcare providers that protect fundamental human rights. The descriptive analysis method based on literature review, which is among the qualitative research methods, was used. The existing studies in the literature were comprehensively reviewed and examined regarding the subject of the thesis. During this research process, appropriate and reliable data were collected by scanning theses, relevant articles, books, reports and other academic sources. Then, these collected data were organized and interpreted through the descriptive analysis process and were associated with the facts targeted by the thesis study.