16.11.2013The community monitoring on health care was presented during the EUPHA annual conference
The 6th European Public Health Conference “Health in Europe: are we there yet?” took place in Brussels from November 13 – 16th. It brought together around 1000 health care practitioners, academics and decision-makers all across the Europe that made it the biggest EU forum expected to shape important developments in the public health. The Open Society Foundations organized several events within the big forum around Austerity and public health as well as around Roma health rights.
One of them was the Round table “Bridging the Gap Between Policy and Practice in Roma Health”. Axelle Cheney (DG Justice of the European Commission), Charles Price (DG SANCO), Marian Mandache (Romani CRISS – Romania) and Deyan Kolev (Center AMALIPE – Bulgaria) were the main panelists. The Round-table was moderated by Alina Covaci (OSF) and Kiaran O’Reilly (ERRC).
Axelle Cheney outlined the importance of health care as one of the 4 key areas in the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies and the respective NRISs prepared by all EU Member-states. She stressed that at present DG Justice is negotiating European Council Recommendations for the implementation of the national Roma strategies that would be a “soft law” - for first time in the EU policy regarding Roma. Mrs. Cheney explained that at present DDG Justice is collecting feedback – from the member states and the civil society – regarding the Roma integration measures implementation in 2011-2013. The deadline for it is November 18th and the feedback received will be used for preparing the first evaluation report.
Charles Price delivered presentation about the place public health has in the entire EU policy within the so-called “European semester”. He spoke also about the involvement of civil society on strengthening the national Roma integration strategies. Marian Mandache provided several examples from the work of Romani CRISS that influenced the health care policy in Romania and EU. For example, the Roma health mediators were initiated by the organization and initially they were employed by Romani CRISS. The Romanian Ministry of Health recognized them as successful practice and even financially contributed that was a good example for partnership. Later this practice was institutionalized and transmitted in Bulgaria, Macedonia and other countries
Deyan Kolev presented the community monitoring on health care organized by Amalipe in 4 municipalities. He stressed that the model is based on three important pillars:
- Community mobilization and field work at grass-root level: to strengthen it we have established Community Development Centers in every municipality and local development groups in every place. Community moderators are working there to “wake up” the local communities and to form women clubs, youth clubs and leaders groups of volunteers;
- Community inquiry to assess the health care services delivered: organized twice a year through door-to-door interview in every household and focus groups;
- Follow-up advocacy: for solving concrete local issues. When communities are mobilized and the necessary structures (as the leaders groups) are in place, the advocacy achieves its goals, explained Kolev
He also provided recommendations to European Commission and the national governments how to extend the scope of community monitoring: through investing more EU funds on community mobilization (especially for establishing Community Development Centers) and opening broader space for NGO contribution and community contribution in assessing the implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategies.
