Healthcare For All

Healthcare should never come with a status check. But in Newfoundland and Labrador, migrants, including undocumented people, workers, students, and claimants, are regularly shut out: denied coverage, handed bills no one could pay, or too afraid to walk into a clinic in case it puts a target on their back. People in our communities are getting sicker and going without, because a system decided their lives are conditional. That was a political choice, and it can be unmade.

Medical inadmissibility puts a price tag on a migrant's life and calls it "excessive demand." You can lose your care for losing a job, or risk deportation for getting sick. We have seen where this leads, with people punished for the simple act of asking for help. It is ableism and disposability dressed up as policy.

We demand that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador deliver:

• Universal coverage for every resident, regardless of status, including primary, specialist, mental health, dental, and emergency care.
• A firewall between healthcare and immigration enforcement. No status checks, no data sharing, no fear. Getting care must never trigger a file, a warrant, or a removal.
• Care people can actually reach, with interpretation and translation, clear information, and services in rural and remote communities, not only in St. John's.
• An end to medical inadmissibility, and the logic that measures a person by what their health costs the state.

We don't wait for permission to look after each other, and we build mutual aid and collective care in the meantime. But care for all is a demand we will keep making, and keep organizing for, until no one in this province is left to suffer over a status the state chose to withhold.