Proposing Ethical Guidelines for Providing Health Services to Afghan Immigrants and Refugees in Iran

The right to access health services as a part of fundamental human rights, affected by the conditions and facilities of governments and the international status, has always faced challenges. Despite the clarity of the general policies and upstream documents in the Iranian health system regarding the need to provide immigrants and refugees with health services and Iran’s membership in the relevant conventions, the implementation of the provisions of these documents is not consistent and complete for various reasons, including the inadequacy of laws related to immigrants and refugees and the incorrect implementation of some existing laws. The first draft of the ethical guidelines for providing health services to immigrants was prepared by the research team using the results of a review of relevant documents as well as a qualitative study and finalized according to the opinions of the participants in a panel of experts. In this draft, after explaining the values and ethical principles governing the provision of services to Afghan immigrants, the suggested guidelines and assignments were presented to the main stakeholders involved, including the policymakers and macro planners of the health system, institutions and centers providing health services, professionals and health service providers, professional organizations, civil society activists, media and non-governmental organizations,  and medical research and education authorities and researchers.