An examination of Roma health insurance status in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Roma are significantly less likely to have insurance coverage in most CEE countries, and this gap remains when adjusting for socio-economic differences between Roma and non-Roma in many countries. Much needs to be done to address the known barriers that Roma face in accessing insurance coverage, such as tackling problems related to documentation and the receipt of social benefits.

Attendance to cervical cancer screening among Roma and non-Roma women living in North-Western region of Romania

“…The Roma population is reported to have poorer access to health services and lower uptake of preventative care (Hajioff and McKee 2000;Wamsiedel et al 2012) than other citizens. Half of the Roma population (vs. 20% of the overall population) is without health insurance (European Commission 2014; Kuhlbrandt et al 2014).…”

Cardiovascular risk factors in a Roma sample population from Romania

“…However, preventive and secondary care are not accessible in the absence of medical insurance coverage. A study carried out in 12 Central and Eastern Europe countries focusing on Roma health issues found a significant gap between Roma and non-Roma residents in health care accessibility, with insurance coverages ranging from 2.8% to 67.7%, Romania reporting a 49.3% coverage among Roma [19]. As much as two thirds of subjects from the second phase of the project had a family physician and most reported a good patient-doctor relationship, however this did not appear to influence the low insurance coverage, similar to the above mentioned study.…”

Confronting racism in family planning: a critical ethnography of Roma health mediation

“…In Romania, as in other countries where the programme is active, the mediation programme has been welcomed as helping to overcome known inequalities. 6 While mediation may help the individuals who participate to obtain treatment, it also de-politicises the structural aspects of the Romanian health system that often exclude Roma individuals from accessing care: for instance, enrolment in the social health insurance system, 32,33 or discriminatory behaviour by health professionals. 34 This study goes one step beyond this argument, showing how health mediation not only leaves systemic causes of inequalities unaddressed, but also fails to challenge racist assumptions behind anti-natalist discourses about Roma communitiesand worse, how they inadvertently sustain and exacerbate these sentiments by unquestioningly promoting contraception in discourse and practice.…”