Tant qu’on a la santé… c’est pire !

It is common knowledge that serious illness is the worst of calamities. Yet for those in situations of extreme poverty, it is sometimes preferable to be in poor health as illness confers access to social services. Ordinarily, the poorest have no way of accessing their rights to these services because access is based on norms they cannot fulfil. Once they are categorised as seriously ill, they are no longer required to fulfil these conditions, hence they are in a position to access care. But this right to social services disappears as soon as they lose their ill status. The social controls governing access to social services, then, can have the adverse effect of causing the poorest to neglect their health to the point of risking death.