Living in the streets and seeking health care

Most homeless people seldom seek medical care in spite of very serious diseases. Numerous caretakers and researchers understand it as mainly the consequence of frequent psychiatric disorders in this population. However, an ethnographic study carried out in the Emergency Shelter Centre of Nanterre, shows that the lack of care can be explained by many other factors. Compliance is impeded by the living conditions in the street (difficulty in satisfying primary needs, alcoholism, etc.), by the representations of the homeless and by the nature of the institutions. Caretakers are accustomed to a precise medical scheme and most often their expectations do not coincide with the life projects of homeless people. The resulting misunderstanding leads to a lack of health care.