News

Around fifty executives and experts from the Regional Health Centers (RHC) and Regional Inspectorates for Protection of Public Health (RIPPH) from the whole country participated in a training on Roma integration, implementation of Health strategy for disadvantaged people belonging to ethnic minorities and incorporating the needs of the Roma community in the National Health Card. The training was held in Veliko Turnovo from 26 to 28 September. It was organized by Center Amalipe and the Ministry of Health with the financial support of Open Society Institute - Budapest.

 Teodora Krumova and  Deyan Kolev from Center Amalipe,   Masha Gavrailova M.D. , Head of “Protection of the Public Health” Directorate in the Ministry of Health, Mavrodiy Kaleynski  M.D. and Stefan Panayotov M.D. – medical professionals experienced in working with Roma and Denitsa Sacheva - expert in advocacy activities in the health field were the major lecturers and moerators of the training.

 The workshop participants identified the lecture presenting various features of the Roma community as one of the most interesting and useful.  Knowledge and awareness regarding the different specificities of Roma groups were accounted as the crucial factor by the participants in regard to achieve positive results in providing health services, campaigning in the community to increase health awareness, promotion of contraceptive methods and other interventions in the Roma community. Many of the administrative leaders expressed their wish to continue working in collaboration with Roma traditional authorities, institutions and NGOs. Some of the heads of the RHC and the RIPPH proposed lectures explaining intra specifics of the Roma community to be presented to their teams working on prevention of communicable diseases and immunization.

 As the most successful approach for the provision of health services in the Roma community participants have determined the use of community facilitators.  This model has been successfully proven during various information and vaccination campaigns conducted among different Roma groups. Community/health mediators are extremely useful mechanism for intervention in closed and marginalized communities, but it should be perceived also as a mechanism for community development and thus – temporary; it should be terminated once the required level of development and modernization in the community is reached. The position of Roma health mediators has undergone many metamorphoses over the years but now a unified program for their training, job description and mechanisms for monitoring and verification of their activity have been achieved. Unfortunately the poorly arranged financing scheme for the funding of Roma health mediators is still a disadvantage. Representatives of the RHC and RIPPH expressed a joint concern regarding the need of working with local municipalities to promote the position of mediators and allocating money for such a post in the budgets of the respective municipalities. "The Health mediator is of a grave importance not only to the community and the doctors, but contributes to the prevention of health problems in our society. It is extremely important to work for them to be used throughout the country. " one of the participants shared.

Concrete proposals for improving the cooperation between Roma community and health system structures were elaborated by the participants during the meeting: opening of health centers in Roma neighborhoods, further training of health professionals working with Roma community, promoting and advocacy for the position of health and community mediators and enhancing the collaboration with local Roma representatives on determining the priorities and needs in the health care system. It is expected that those specific proposals will be included in the Regional health cards.