Among health and law: asylum seekers’ access to emergency care in Italy during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

This thesis investigates the extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst for Italy’s measures implementation aimed at ensuring asylum seekers’ access to emergency healthcare. Drawing on the analysis of legal frameworks, policy documents and institutional responses between 2020 and 2022, the study reveals how the pandemic both highlighted and deepened existing tensions in Italy’s healthcare and migration governance. While formal commitments to universality and EU compliance were maintained, practical access to care was shaped by legal ambiguity, regional disparities and selective enforcement, often subordinating health rights to questions of legality, productivity or political expediency. Emergency tools such as quarantine ships, temporary protections and digital health systems served dual roles: both enabling limited access and reinforcing exclusionary logics. Rather than triggering a comprehensive rights-based shift, Italy’s pandemic response largely replicated a pre-existing security-driven paradigm. The research concludes that while Covid-19 prompted some procedural alignment with EU norms, it failed to generate the structural reforms needed to guarantee equitable and inclusive healthcare for asylum seekers. Ultimately, the pandemic should serve as a critical inflection point, compelling Italy and the EU to build resilient systems rooted in dignity, accountability and the fundamental right to health, beyond the logic of emergency and toward enduring inclusion.