National Working Group:

Portugal (28th September 2005)

Conclusions

In the follow up of the participation of REAPN in the project and in Sastipen Network, we promote since 1996, the Working Group Interinstitucional on Gypsy Ethnic (SINA). This Working Group, which is composed by public and private entities, has trying, within a culture of network, to think about strategies and ways of intervention connected in order to combat some of the problems that Roma Communities have in Portugal. This Group share methods and strategies of the European Network SASTIPEN trying to implement, at national level, their activities, as a way to provide a space of debate and quarrel around the issues related to this communities, trying to find solutions, and support all those that work with these communities, as well as Roma associations.

Main objectives of this working Group:

-          to facilitate an improvement of the quality of life of the Roma community, though the share of actions and strategies;

-          to strengthen a European space of knowledge and information on the situation of the Roma community in the Europe, related with the most diverse phenomena and issues;

-          to mobilize different social actors and promote the development of initiatives with the Roma population in the countries members of the network;

-          to promote a speech and Knowledge based on elements of common interest, on the analysis of the situation of the Roma population, methods and strategies of intervention;

-          to transfer and to mobilize knowledge’s and good practices on the intervention with  Roma population, experienced by the members that are inside this Group and other entities interested in participating;

-          to compromise other organizations, interested in the work with the Roma Community;

Actors to be involved:

-          public and private organisations of different areas of intervention (health, education, social security, justice, among others), with a particular incidence in the area of health;

-          all the organisations that already integrate group SINA or that collaborated with the European Anti-Poverty network/Portugal.

The meetings of the Working Group are important moments because they are spaces of meeting, debate and exchange of experiences and planning of activities. In the scope of this group some activities were developed, for example, the Thematic Meeting about Roma Communities and the Ciganos.pt Magazine. This working group has as permanently goal: the involvement of new organisations, especially national Roma associations in order to improve the work of the group. So, in Portugal we will promote some meetings in order to present the main recommendations on this issue. We also want to define, in group, a set the main contents of the training that will be developed in our country.

This first meeting was on 28^th of September. In this meeting, we presented the project Sastipen to the participants and we were able to make a first survey of the situation of the Roma Communities in the area of the health.

The main conclusions of the meeting were:

-          lack of information (health indicators) about this minority;

-          some recent researches reveals that the Roma Communities are the target of health inequalities and are the most disfavoured group in this domain. Some of the authors make reference to the difficulties in the access to the information, more specially information related with the vaccination of the children, the prevention and the treatment of some diseases;

-          the access of these communities to the health services is incipient (very little). A Roma population seems to be not very concern with health an have few preventive habits of health. This is because Health for Roma Communities is just (is similarly) absence of disease. Roma population only appeals to health services in case of extreme necessity, that is, when they are sick and need to be treated;

-          the poor or inadequate nutrition makes them more exposed to serious illnesses; some of them were almost eradicated from the majority of society. At this level there are still many gaps and deficiencies, such as: excess of grease and sugars, absence of schedules and healthy alimentary habits;

-          in what concerns drug addiction and drug traffic, the tradition on marketing selling, the contact with marginalised sectors of the society, its social and economical conditions and the difficult on the access to the information, seem to explain the vulnerability and the spread/enlargement of this practice within Roma Community. These practices within Roma Community contribute for the vulnerability of the gypsy’s families and for the worsening of its situation of exclusion and poverty;

-          gypsies’ communities present high levels of premature maternity and few (or none) medical assistance on pregnancy or childbirth and they present also a high average number of children. The contraception (birth control) is not  current practice; even so it starts to be more frequent among the youngest women;

-          the standardized functioning of health services it’s an obstacle in the access to theses minority groups and they enhance repressive behaviours quitting them to take some attitudes and increasing the mutual diffidence. Gypsies have proper cultural characteristics that need to be respected or take in consideration in the interaction/intervention with these communities. It’s clear the existence of a mutual ignorance between gypsies communities and health services. This ignorance leads to a hostility resulted of a series of stigmas and fears. Gypsies are characterized as being insubordinate, demand and undisciplined in relation to the functioning of the services and to the medical prescriptions because they don’t believe in medical professionals and in health services. The different perspectives and expectations in relation to the health cares by gypsies and medical professionals, it’s an obstacle to the communication and the interaction between them. It’s the lack of knowledge about gypsy culture and it’s characteristics that difficult the use of the services that could improve its quality of life. By this way the health problems of these communities became worse because of some of their traditions, customs and beliefs. Many of the diseases are related to the supernatural, and so they apply to healers and alternative medicines.