Some of the challenges involved in providing healthcare to undocumented workers would be first identifying who makes up the population. There really is no way to definitively identify undocumented workers (especially in a respectful manner) unless the undocumented workers identify themselves - which is unlikely due to possible repercussions and consequences by government enforcement agencies. In addition, the effectiveness of health programs would rely strongly on follow up. Undocumented workers face issues such as access to healthcare, consistent follow-up, and cost issues. Even if the undocumented worker is able to receive the appropriate healthcare and drug prescription, they may not be able to afford the drug or even access the pharmacy providing the drug due to location issues. Patient compliance may also be hindered because the undocumented workers have short visits with physicians far and few in between, which may not permit enough time to comprehensively understand their health problem. The lack of understanding may result in decreased patient compliance, even if not intentionally, because the patients are unawareness of the seriousness of their health problems. Another challenge is the environment that these patients are living in. While changing the environment may help reduce the health problems, this is often not available for undocumented workers to readily change their environment.
Challenges to undocumented workers