Children in England’s Asylum Hotels Suffering from Malnutrition
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Health professionals have raised concerns about the increasing number of children in asylum seeker hotel accommodation being diagnosed with malnutrition, the Guardian reported.
Cases of malnutrition among both children and adults have been confirmed in various different areas of England, including hotels in London and in the south-west.
In some areas health professionals have started weighing children at the hotels who have become dangerously thin and in need of frequent monitoring.
Those working with families in hotels reported that some parents have been found rummaging through bins to find food for their children and adults were losing as much as 10-15kg (22-33lbs) of weight.
Rupert Blomfield, manager of Refugee Support Devon, which is providing support to asylum seekers in hotels across the county, said, “Some children are simply not eating. We have had cases of malnutrition confirmed. Some children have been losing weight to quite a dangerous degree.”
One health and social care professional who is also involved with weighing asylum seekers in the Devon area said, “The situation for families is dire and no matter how many times issues are raised with the contractor or the Home Office, nothing changes. The children are losing weight rapidly, going to school and saying they’re starving, eating two portions of lunch. They are saying that they don’t want to return to the hotel which they describe as ‘prison’."
“We’re ignored when complaints are raised and so have resorted to weighing some of the families to evidence the weight loss and push for changes to be made,” the source added.
Stephen Farmer, headteacher at Cranbrook Education Campus near Exeter, which is part of the Ted Wragg Trust, confirmed that the school was feeding 47 asylum-seeking children attending the school because they were coming to school hungry.
“We do have concerns and we have raised these concerns with MPs, local authorities and various other agencies. There are a lot of meetings going on,” he said, adding, “Our job as school leaders is to ensure that children are safe and healthy. We are providing more food for these pupils because we have noticed they are hungry.”
One family who spent nine months in a hotel in another part of the country after fleeing persecution and death threats by security services in their home country have lost significant amounts of weight. The father said he had lost 9kg (20lbs), his wife 5kg and their 11-year-old son 4kg. Their seven-year-old daughter has also lost a significant amount of weight since the family arrived in the UK in May of last year.
“My son is allergic to certain foods as he has a disorder of his red blood cells. I asked the chef in the hotel to tell me the ingredients in the food so I could make sure there was nothing my son is not allowed to eat in it. He refused to give me that information. When I asked him if he would give this food to his children he replied ‘no way’. I am so concerned about my children’s health. We took a photo of my son when we arrived here and he was a healthy weight. In a recent photo we took all his bones are sticking out.”
A Syrian mother who is accommodated in a London hotel with her family and has been in the UK for 14 months said, “Seeing my children lose weight in the hotel is breaking my heart. Children are supposed to gain weight as they grow not lose it.”
“My three-year-old daughter has lost a lot of weight since we arrived. She only weighs 13 kilos now. When we ask for milk for the children they don’t always give it to us and the milk we do get looks like it’s mixed with water. We’re given rice swimming in water and stinky chicken,” she added.
Steve Smith, CEO of refugee charity Care4Calais said, “A system that allows private contractors to profit while human beings, including children, are losing weight from being denied access to nutritious food, is a system that is broken. This is a public health issue and one that the government must urgently get on top of.”
A Home Office spokesperson said, “The welfare of those in our care is absolutely paramount. Asylum seekers in receipt of catered accommodation are provided with three meals a day, along with fresh fruit and snacks. The food provided in asylum hotels meets NHS Eatwell standards and responds to all cultural and dietary requirements. Where concerns are raised about any aspect of the service delivered in a hotel, we work with the provider to ensure these concerns are swiftly addressed.”
