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19.03.2015Hearing on Roma health took part in Brussels

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More than 40 participants: experts in health and NGOs, representatives of European Commission, Council of Europe, Fundamental Rights Agency, national contact points, managing authorities of different operational programs took part in the hearing “European funds for Roma health integration”. It was organized by AMALIPE Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance (Bulgaria), Roma Center for Public Health Policies SASTIPEN (Romania) and European Roma Information Office (Brussels, Belgium) with the support of Roma Health Project, Open Society Foundations, Damian Draghici, MEP and the European Economic and Social Committee. The event took place on March 16 in European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels.   

Health, Education, Housing and Employment are like 4 dots in the human life circle: every dot is connected with the others and wherever the circle turns, their links remain the same – H – E – H – E, stated the Member of European Parliament from Roma origin Damian Draghichi in his opening remarks. In my life education was the strongest priority but it is not possible to educate yourself if you are not healthy, do not have proper place to live and has no income. That is why all these four fields are priorities. Roma integration policy pays insignificant attention to health  - both at national and EU level and this weakness should be overcome, said Mr. Draghichi. That is why I will organize Parliamentary hearing on Roma health together with Amalipe, Sastipen and other organizations that work on the field.

The executive director of ERIO Ivan Ivanov also stressed the importance of healthcare and congratulated Amalipe and OSF for bringing this topic on the agenda. He expressed his opinion that discrimination is everyday practice that disturbs healthcare service provision regarding Roma in many EU countries and provided shocking examples from Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria.

Maja Saitovic from Open Society Foundations stressed that healthcare is among the major fields of interest for OSF. The Public Health Program has special Roma Health Project that supports pilot initiatives as Roma Health Scholarship Program, community monitoring of healthcare services and others. RHP supports the present hearing and will continue organizing similar events in order to bring more political attention to Roma health topic, said Mrs. Saitovich.

Explaining the context of the event, Deyan Kolev from Amalipe pointed that most of the operational programs in EU are done or almost done. Many of them contain the Roma integration topic and some remarks to healthcare. It is important now to advocate for concrete calls and measures that bring change in Roma health.

Main observation and recommendations regarding the usage of European funds for improving the health status and access to healthcare for Roma in Spain, Romania and Bulgaria were presented during the hearing. We know what should be done for improving the health status of Spanish Roma and significant positive experience is accumulated, stated in his presentation Jose-Manuel Fresno, expert on social inclusion from Spain. The Partnership Agreement provides framework for actions in this direction. Nevertheless, significant challenges appear in the regional Operational programs many of which do not recognize this topic. Mr. Fresno provided a set of concrete recommendations to the National contact point, the regional OPs and the European Commission. The presentation could be seen here

Loredana Feraru and Mariana Sandu from Sastipen – Romania stressed the disadvantaged health situation of Roma with concrete figures regarding the life expectancy, mortality rate, infant and maternal mortality rates among Roma in Romania. They spoke about the structural problems that prevented the effective use of EU funds for solving these problems during the previous programming period. The presentation finished with proposed directions for future development in the next 5 years. The presentation could be seen here

 Deyn Kolev pointed 4 successful models for improving the access of Roma to healthcare in Bulgaria health mediators, Health and Social Centers in Roma community, Roma Health Scholarship Program and community monitoring. He argued that in the period 2007-2013 EU funds missed to support the extension of any of these models. As positive example he showed the EEA / Norwegian Grants that are supporting at present the extension of Roma Health Scholarship Program although the project for this has just started and its results could not be predict. Kolev presented the new Human Resources Development OP as good framework for supporting Roma integration measures, including healthcare. He proposed concrete calls and operations to be announced in this direction. The presentation could be seen here

Kiril Kiryakov (DG EMPL of European Commission), Rositza Ivanova (secretary of Bulgarian National contact point), Roberto Marinov (representative of Managing authority of HRD OP in Bulgaria and Ciprian Ursu (National Institute for  Public Health, Romania) provided first reactions to the observations and suggestions. Mr. Kiryakov explained that European Commission requires civil society participation at every stage of EU funds: from planning to evaluation. Amalipe is the most obvious example in this direction: it took very active role in the preparation of the two ESF funded operational programs in Bulgaria, participates in the Monitoring Committees and takes real part in the decision-making process, said Mr. Kiryakov. He agreed that healthcare is not included enough in the Roma integration actions and promised to stress the attention of the Managing authorities on this issue in order to have proper calls.

Rositza Ivanova provided concrete figures from Bulgaria that illustrate the disadvantages in healthcare faced by Roma community. She explained that the National Contact Point will develop by the end of 2015 system for monitoring of the National Roma Integration Strategy that will cover health care and will include contribution of the civil society (including community monitoring). Roberto Marinov explained that Human Resources Development OP will support activities for improving the health status of Roma within investment priority “Socio-economic integration of marginalized communities such as Roma” and the first call could be expect in 2015.

 

See related materials:

Factsheet for Spain

Factsheet for Romania

Factsheet for Bulgaria

Presentation of Jose Manuel Fresno

Presentation of Sastipen

Presentation of Amalipe

       

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