Migrants/Refugees in Slovene Healthcare Many Open Questions and Some Possible Answers DOI 10.17234/9789531756525.9 Uršula Lipovec Čebron Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana Zavetiška 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
[email protected] Sara Pistotnik Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana Zavetiška 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
[email protected] Based on the research conducted within the framework of the project “Together for Health – Skupaj za zdravje” led by National Institute of Public Health (2014–2016), the first part of the chapter presents several obstacles – legal and administrative barriers in formal access to Slovene public healthcare system as well as language and cultural barriers – that migrants/refugees face in the healthcare system in Slovenia. In the second part of our contribution, the authors discuss some approaches aimed at overcoming these obstacles that were implemented as part of the same project. Namely, a proposal for systemic changes on the level of legislation, an introduction of an intercultural mediator for women from the Albanian-speaking community in two Slovene healthcare institutions, a training course on cultural competence for healthcare workers and a self- evaluation tool for the measurement of the level of equity in the healthcare institutions. Through a critical analysis of these approaches, the authors try to show their advantages and limitations and to conclude this chapter with some considerations for future devel- opments in this field. Keywords: migrants/refugees, healthcare, Slovenia, obstacles, tools/strategies Introduction eide Castañeda, together with Seth M. Holmes, James Quesada and other anthropologists (2015), suggests that when speaking about migration and health the questions of access to healthcare are the “most common Hstructural factor explored in the literature” (Castañeda et al.