Ethnic monitoring should be introduced into the health service if equal health status for Travellers is to be achieved, a conference on Traveller health was told yesterday. Kitty Holland reports.
Dr Robert Berkeley, senior policy analyst with the Runnymede Trust - a British multi-ethnic lobbying and research non-government organisation - said the health service must recognise Travellers have different - as well as similar - needs to those of the settled population.
Assumptions about the population and the details of their needs could not be made without facts, he said.
Ethnic monitoring was compulsory in all public bodies in Britain and though controversial when first introduced, it was taken for granted now. It involves recording the ethnic background of all users of a public service, as well as their needs and experience of the service.
"The value of ethnic monitoring is that it gives you the facts, and from facts we can begin to make changes."
Without hard data about ethnic minorities' needs, health providers were working in the dark, he said. Marginalisation could not be tackled without facts.
The conference heard that Traveller men had a life expectancy 10 years shorter than that of settled men, while the life expectancy of Traveller women was 12 years shorter than among settled women. For every six babies still-born to settled mothers, there were 17 babies still-born to Traveller women.
Travellers were only now achieving a life expectancy achieved by the settled community in the 1950s.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said the National Health Strategy recognised Travellers as "a distinct minority group of Irish people" with an evidently poorer health status than that of the settled population. His Department was committed to taking part in a "Travellers' all-Ireland health study" with other bodies including the Northern Irish Department of Health and he hoped this study would get underway next year, he said.
Ms Missie Collins, a Traveller and member of the National Traveller Health Advisory Committee, said there had been some improvements since the publication of the Traveller National Health Strategy in 2002. "But just a fistful. We need more and we need them fast," she said.