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- Page navigation anchor for Calais JungleCalais JungleThankfully the problem highlighted by Clare et al in the October edition of BJGP has been overtaken by events due to the welcome and robust action of the French authorities but I have a number of points to make. Firstly there are international conventions on refugees and asylum seekers which generally require those seeking sanctuary to make their application for asylum at the first safe country in which they arrive. Those camping out in Calais were doing so of their own volition as it is almost inconceivable that Calais was their first point of entry to Europe. It would not be wrong to regard them as vagrants, using a dictionary definition of the term. Secondly on the use of military medical personnel to manage the health needs of this population, this suggestion is naive and offensive to our French colleagues. It is true that military medical personnel have been deployed on humanitarian operations, but that is not their prime role. The common factor on those deployments has been the complete breakdown of indigenous medical services due to war, natural disaster or the wholescale abandonment of patients. To suggest that the requirement in Calais was analogous is an enormous insult to the French health services and those who work in them.Competing Interests: None declared.