Campaign for Healthcare Promotion with the Roma Population

The “LULUDI” Roma Association of Women and Youth, in cooperation with the “For a Happy Childhood” NGO, implemented a national survey on the use of health insurance and healthcare among the Roma in Macedonia. The survey, conducted on a sample of 1,000 Roma families, provides a general picture of the characteristics, needs and priorities of the Roma population in terms of healthcare. According to the findings, 39.42 percent of the polled families have no health insurance. The most important reasons for such appalling situation, the polled listed the costs to get the proper paperwork (34.15%), unregulated citizenship status (12.2%), incomplete primary education (19.51%), unemployment (12.2%), refugee status (7.31%), while full 14.63% of the polled said that they don’t know the procedure to gain the right to health insurance. The Survey was conducted under the auspices of the “A Different Approach – Improved Health for All”, one-year campaign designed to provide for the fulfillment of the right to healthcare to the Roma population in Macedonia. The campaign started in January 2005, and is financed by FOSIM. The campaign focuses on the lack of health-related information among the Roma population, in part related to the low level of education of the population, but also the lack of alternative ways to inform the public about the health services, as well as the lacking effort by the competent institutions regarding the length and complexity of the registration procedures. Under the campaign, LULUDI organizes activities for different target groups: identification of the citizens that are not registered by the state, which makes them a potentially high-risk group without permanent residence and the appropriate health care coverage; organization of training programmes for medical workers (15 persons in five cities were trained so far) on the subject of benefits brought about by good cooperation and the obstacles such a communication between the patients and the medical personnel; it will implement an education campaign on national level, through seminars and workshops, for the Roma populations of Skopje, Kunamovo, Kocani, Tetovo and Prilep . LULUDI established an Office for Free Legal Advise, Information and Services in the field of healthcare. The citizens that need to know how, when and where, and what to do to secure their right to healthcare, could call (02) 2656 496, every week-day, from 10:00-16:00 hours.

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