Support offered to Roma community during pandemic must continue, says HSE and NGO network

Members of the Roma community who have sought help from the HSE during the pandemic are suffering from a much higher "burden" of chronic disease than the general population, a new report has warned.

Data collected by HSE Social Inclusion and partners working to support vulnerable groups underlines the health inequalities and social exclusion experienced by Ireland’s Roma community, which has been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

It warns many Roma presented for help during the pandemic with “untreated chronic or infectious diseases”, while a high proportion who accessed HSE support services were young mothers with children.

The Covid Response for Vulnerable People (CRVP) service was established in May 2020 to offer quarantine and self-isolation supports to Roma, Travellers and other vulnerable people who could not self-isolate in their own homes due to overcrowding or homelessness.

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Some 80 per cent of the 1,062 people who have availed of the service between May 2020 - June 2021 were members of the Roma community and nearly 40 per cent were children, according to the CRVP briefing report published on Monday.

It is understood the service, which brought together NGOs in collaboration with HSE officials, is due to close in October.

The HSE's Citywest self-isolation facility is also expected to close in early December. However, groups working on the project have warned of an "urgent need" to continue providing these supports into the future.

Without this joined-up approach, which over the past 15 months has successfully identified people's health, housing and social care needs, Roma families entering Ireland for the first time will continue to experience the cycle of "exclusion, poverty and marginalisation", warns the briefing.

Demand for rooms at the CRVP unit in Dublin’s city centre has not dropped as Ireland has loosened restrictions and emerged from the worst of the pandemic, a CRVP representative, who asked not to be named, told The Irish Times. She added that the levels of deprivation faced by the Roma community seeking help were truly shocking.

CRVP figures from March-May 2021 showed 6.5 per cent of Roma people had a cardiovascular diagnosis such as hypertension or heart failure, double that found among the general population aged over 50. The report also warns of a “very high rate of infectious diseases” among Roma adults.

“Rough sleeping, the imminent risk of homelessness and extremely poor, overcrowded housing” were central issues faced by Roma households following discharge from the CRVP service, notes the report. Roma people also faced a “high risk of racism and discrimination” when trying to secure appropriate housing.

A survey of residents in CRVP found 60 per cent of adults could not read or write in their own spoken language and only 40 per cent were able to read and write in Romanian. Of those able to read and write, none were able to do so in English.

The CRVP unit operates through a collaboration between HSE Dublin South Kildare and West Wicklow Social Inclusion with NGO partners Cairde, Crosscare, Focus Ireland, Pavee Point and Safetynet Primary Care.

This CRVP group says services must continue operating until spring 2022 and say a “step-down plan” is needed before the full closure of CRVP facilities.

It warns that the lack ethnic identifiers across health data systems has made it “impossible to ascertain the true impact” of Covid-19 on Ireland’s Roma population. However, figures presented by Pavee Point during the pandemic suggest a fatality rate of almost 10 per cent among Roma who contracted the virus during July 2020. This ethnic equality monitoring is urgently needed across all State budgets and programming along with accessible interpretation and translation services across all frontline services, it adds.