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During three hours students from Roma Health Scholarship Program discussed with Minister of EU funds Tomislav Donchev the problems of access to healthcare and the quality of life in small living places. The Director of the Regional Health Insurance Fund Dr. Ivan Ivanov and the Director of the Regional Health Inspectorate Dr. Albena Lambeva also participated in the discussion. The event took place during a student’s conference “We are neither impersonal, nor Indifferent” organized by Center Amalipe as part of the Advocacy training for Roma medical students. The conference took place on September 2^nd at the Governor’s office in Veliko Tarnovo.

A day before the event the students – divided in small groups – had visited the villages of Batak, Varbovka (Pavlikeni Municipality), Vodolei (Veliko Tarnovo Municipality), Bebrovo and Maisko (Elena Municipality) as well as the Roma neighborhoods in Gorna Orjahovica. At the sight they searched for information about the health status of the people and the problems in access to quality healthcare services of the local Roma population and also the obstacles in other areas of life – education, infrastructure and employment. The observations and conclusions that the students made were presented at the conference.

Lots of emotions and rational proposals were implied in the presentations of each group. The students could not hide their professional understanding on some cases they have encountered during the outreach work – such as mistaken diagnosis, lack of daily services of a medical specialist, unlawful charges that were supposed to be covered by the Health Insurance Fund, even fatal death cases due to a late show of ambulance. The students shared their pain provoked by the devastating poor life and the low quality of education in local schools which condemns intelligent Roma children.

The students made number of concrete proposals. The medical observation and screening of mothers one year after delivery must be covered by the Health Insurance Fund regardless the health insurance status. After all the interest of the child is superior, the students said. A change in the normative regulations to guarantee pharmacies in each village was the demand of another group. It is necessary to bring serious attention to the villages in the so called “urbanized municipalities” that are not eligible for participation in the Rural Areas Development Program. For example a program that would be designed only for villages with poor living conditions and also sanctions for municipalities in which the quality of life is many times better than the life in the villages of the same municipality, the students insisted.

Minister Donchev was sincerely respected by the professionalism and advocate passion of the students. He participated in the entire discussion and answered all queries and proposals regarding the improvement of quality of life in villages. The Minister underlined that the money is not basic problem for the Roma integration – money will be provided also from the EU funds. Broad public support should be brought and in that matter the medical Roma students who speak in a professional manner on different issues besides the medicine are essential. “You are the vivid advertisement of the Roma integration”, Donchev said.     

He underlined that he will engage himself personally the National Roma strategy to be one of the main priorities for funding in the next programming period as long as it is prepared in a pragmatical manner as it happened with the deinstitutionalization. “The plan for deinstitutionalization provisions that we will invest 200 million BGN for 10 years for better future of 7000 children. Step by step this happens – in a good way. This is what I want to achieve regarding Roma integration – effective concrete plan that would be implemented, pointed Minister Donchev. He also explained that the entire integrationwill take long time but for 10 -15 years we can reverse the trend and to make Roma integration irreversible.