National Working Group:

"Methodologies of the reception (welcome) and taking in charge of the Roma population”

Slovakia (20th April 2005)

Conclusions

Conclusions from the 1^st meeting of Slovak national working group

Program “Reducing Health Inequalities in the Roma Community”

Bratislava, April 20, 2005

The attending organizations expressed their gratitude they can meet together (representatives form non-governmental organizations together with representatives of state institutions) since there is no such platform here.

There is variety of professionals in the working group, doctors and nurses working directly with Roma minority, representatives of NGOs implementing projects on health care, state health care institutions representatives (for details, please see the list of participants).

The representatives presented their institution/ organization’s work in the area of health care focused on Roma minority. It was worth to know how many programs in this topic were already realized, and which programs are in the stage of realization, so we could think of possible cooperation also within our program.

Also it was important that the WG members had the space to talk about problems with people who actually have the power to change the situation and have information from the “first hand”.

One of the working group members is Ms. Skublova from the Ministry of Health Care of the Slovak Republic. For most of the members it was very important to hear the information on large PHARE project which Ministry of Health Care is actually implementing. Its main aim is to increase the access to health care services of marginalized communities in Slovakia (to set up mobile ambulances and to train health care assistants who will work specifically with Roma). Most of the working group members did not know about such project. Ms. Skublova presented the working packages and how the other NGOs/ institutions can get involved into it.

We received interesting information also from Ms. Deveckova from Regional Institute of Public Health Care. They are working on educational activities focused on teachers and Roma assistants, they intervene directly at schools. They are also monitoring the health status of Roma children and mothers in the most marginalized areas in the Presov district (app. 1800 families). They were comparing the life style of minority and majority and the biggest differences are not in the health status, but in life style and there is direct line between the life style and poorer health (absence of regular exercise, children with lower natal weigh, poor nutrition etc.).

One of the members Ms. Lamackova from “Moznost volby” spoke about the preparation of the National program of reproduction health (one of the suggested tasks was to have the modern contraceptives methods financially available also for marginalized communities). This program was not approved by the government yet.

The next meeting of the WG is planned in November 2005 (the exact date has to be set). The main aim of the second meeting is to gather ideas of thematic areas for the national roundtable on Health Care in Roma Communities planed in June 2005.