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Romania should combine the Norwegian and the Danish immigrant integration systems
Alexandra Mănăilă - Reporter
7 May 2015
At the end of last month ICAR Foundation and their Norwegian partner RVTS Vest organised the press conference "Northern Models of Approaching Migrant Integration"; several experts from Norway and Denmark participated and shared their experience related mainly to the medical services they provide to immigrants.
In Norway there are currently 5 regional resource centres on violence and traumatic stress, focused on health services dedicated to immigrants. Health services are included in the state support provided through local authorities. The Norwegian experience in the field is relevant for Romania because Norwegians started from specialised services for this category, then they considered it is like a stigma to have special services just for immigrants so they abandoned them. They included them in the general medical service system. When reviewing the results they concluded it is not the same to be a migrant with health problems or a Norwegian with health problems, so they are again in the process of revising the system and they will probably revert to the original solution, namely to provide specialised services for migrants. Solve Saetre, special counsellor in Bergen City Hall, said that about 450 refugees come annually to the municipality from reception centres. The municipality has to make a budget and to see how many people they are able to receive, so as to ensure language tuition, housing, qualification, a complex set of integration measures for refugees.
"Local funds and central state funds are combined. An amount is received for each immigrant and additional amounts may be granted for those with special problems, disabilities or mental disorder", said Solve Saetre.
In Denmark a special, separate medical branch developed, tackling only migrants' health. The Danes actually acknowledged the need for special services and they followed this line, with almost 4-5 specialised clinics in place in Denmark. Prof. Morten Sodemann, chief of the health clinic for migrants within Southern Denmark University, confessed that in the first two years since the clinic opened it had a loss, but then he managed to convince politicians to provide a constant budget, so as to provide funding from the public health system. 1,300 persons have been treated so far in the Danish University clinic, out of a total population of 9,000 refugees.
"It is a documented fact that minorities such as migrants have a poorer health condition than the rest of the population, a more limited access to health services and a higher mortality, also generated by the system which is not always ready to cope with this type of patients", said prof. Morten Sodemann, an infectious disease specialist physician.
"This migrant health issue is solved differently in the two countries, although they are both Scandinavian countries. It is a major challenge for us, as we are the only organisation providing health services for immigrants, focused so far on asylum seekers and refugees. There is infrastructure and know-how for this activity: we have psychologists, physicians, social workers. We'll have to chose what we can do here. Both countries are rich and they invest significant amounts, but we deliberately have not started from the financial standing. We want to have a mechanism, a structure, a work flow and then to think about the financial aspects. Romania should combine the two systems, as neither the Norwegian system, nor the Danish one can be fully applied here", emphasized Camelia Doru, director of ICAR foundation.
The press conference was held within a wider event, with interesting presentations and debates, organized within the ICAR project - Resource and Service Centre for Migrants, co-financed from the SEE grants 2009-2014, within the NGO Fund in Romania.
In Norway there are currently 5 regional resource centres on violence and traumatic stress, focused on health services dedicated to immigrants. Health services are included in the state support provided through local authorities. The Norwegian experience in the field is relevant for Romania because Norwegians started from specialised services for this category, then they considered it is like a stigma to have special services just for immigrants so they abandoned them. They included them in the general medical service system. When reviewing the results they concluded it is not the same to be a migrant with health problems or a Norwegian with health problems, so they are again in the process of revising the system and they will probably revert to the original solution, namely to provide specialised services for migrants. Solve Saetre, special counsellor in Bergen City Hall, said that about 450 refugees come annually to the municipality from reception centres. The municipality has to make a budget and to see how many people they are able to receive, so as to ensure language tuition, housing, qualification, a complex set of integration measures for refugees.
"Local funds and central state funds are combined. An amount is received for each immigrant and additional amounts may be granted for those with special problems, disabilities or mental disorder", said Solve Saetre.
In Denmark a special, separate medical branch developed, tackling only migrants' health. The Danes actually acknowledged the need for special services and they followed this line, with almost 4-5 specialised clinics in place in Denmark. Prof. Morten Sodemann, chief of the health clinic for migrants within Southern Denmark University, confessed that in the first two years since the clinic opened it had a loss, but then he managed to convince politicians to provide a constant budget, so as to provide funding from the public health system. 1,300 persons have been treated so far in the Danish University clinic, out of a total population of 9,000 refugees.
"It is a documented fact that minorities such as migrants have a poorer health condition than the rest of the population, a more limited access to health services and a higher mortality, also generated by the system which is not always ready to cope with this type of patients", said prof. Morten Sodemann, an infectious disease specialist physician.
"This migrant health issue is solved differently in the two countries, although they are both Scandinavian countries. It is a major challenge for us, as we are the only organisation providing health services for immigrants, focused so far on asylum seekers and refugees. There is infrastructure and know-how for this activity: we have psychologists, physicians, social workers. We'll have to chose what we can do here. Both countries are rich and they invest significant amounts, but we deliberately have not started from the financial standing. We want to have a mechanism, a structure, a work flow and then to think about the financial aspects. Romania should combine the two systems, as neither the Norwegian system, nor the Danish one can be fully applied here", emphasized Camelia Doru, director of ICAR foundation.
The press conference was held within a wider event, with interesting presentations and debates, organized within the ICAR project - Resource and Service Centre for Migrants, co-financed from the SEE grants 2009-2014, within the NGO Fund in Romania.
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