Transcultural Paediatrics. An Introduction

Nearly 2 million children and adolescents in Germany come from immigrant families. Medical treatment of these children and young people is often unsatisfactory because of poor compliance. The main reasons for this are insufficient information and poor education, but the diverse views of life and different value systems of the persons concerned are also partly responsible for these problems. The social discrimination experienced by many immigrant children and the course of their lives lead to a higher prevalence of many physical diseases and psychosocial disorders in this population. The individual paediatrician is no longer able to fulfil his socio-political commitment to treating all clients equally. Apart from the voluntary input of individual paediatricians, which cannot be demanded of all of them across the board, there should be a minimum medical standard in hospitals and specialized paediatric out-patient units that would ensure smooth communication. Paediatricians' professional societies must work out this minimum medical standard independently and ask their members to abide by it.