The Danish Conservative Party wants to combat immigrant illnesses by registering those who are ill according to their ethnicity.

The proposal will require new guidelines, as it is currently illegal to map illnesses according to ethnicity.

“As far as we’re concerned there are some immigrant illnesses, among others diabetes-2,” says the Conservative Party’s new Integration Spokesman Naser Khader, MP, himself an immigrant of Syrian-Palestinian extraction.

Register
“Some children are born with handicaps and there are many cases of relationships with near relatives among immigrants. If we are to do something about it, it is important that we begin to register the relationship of sickness to ethnicity,” says Khader.

“As things are now hospitals cannot register a newly-born’s handicap according to its ethnicity, so you can’t research the relationship between cousin marriages and handicap births,” the Conservatives say.

“If a handicapped child is born, it would be reasonable to register where its parents come from,” says Khader.

Khader’s proposal is a repeat of a similar complaint he issued in 2003 when he was Health Spokesman of the Social Liberal Party.

“When I visit hospitals and institutions, (cousin marriages) are mentioned as a problem. There are more handicapped children from ethnic minorities, but it is difficult to get an overall picture of the extent of the problem,” Khader said at the time.

He since left the Social Liberals, started a new party and subsequently left that for the Conservative Party.

National register
The Conservatives want to open a National Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Health to strengthen research on health and prophylactics among immigrants.

“Sometimes, the politically correct tone has meant that you mustn’t say things straight out. You mustn’t say that there are immigrant illnesses and that many immigrants get diabetes 2. That is something we will now do, because there are some people who need a helping hand with their health,” says Conservative Party Leader Lene Espersen.