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SARAJEVO, October 20 (FENA) - FBiH Ministry of Health in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration in BiH (IOM) and the World Health Organization (WHO) organized a conference on the health of migrants in BiH, where the participants discussed the challenges and opportunities related to this topic.
Laura Lungarotti, Head of the IOM in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that this meeting is an opportunity to discuss the efforts that Bosnia and Herzegovina is making to protect the health of migrants and provide assistance. According to her, healthcare systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina take care of the health of migrants, and this could be especially seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“BiH is a good example of efforts to include migrants in health care programs. At the conference, we will see what the challenges are, but also the opportunities in terms of health care for migrants, and how this very good model in BiH can be replicated elsewhere when it comes to health care of migrants,” emphasized Lungarotti before the start of the conference.
She points out that IOM cooperates with government institutions at various levels in BiH, but also with UN agencies and the Danish Council for Refugees - an organization that provides health services to migrants from the non-governmental sector.
When asked by a journalist about the increased number of migrants in BiH, Lungarotti says the number is still within the limits of the available capacities in the country but that the countries of origin from which migrants come are also changing.
“It is a phenomenon that should be accepted as an issue that needs to be managed all the time, rather than understanding it as an emergency. A conference like this is also an opportunity to consider all these issues and to consider this very phenomenon and agree on a long-term vision of how to manage this phenomenon,” she emphasized.
FBiH Assistant Minister of Health Goran Čerkez says that migration is a global issue, and Bosnia and Herzegovina is only one of the countries on the path of migrants. As he said, health is inseparable from migration.
“All these migrants are starting a long journey. The environment and places they pass through and how people treat them, in some way, affect their health. These social determinants, which do not depend exclusively on the health system, largely define their health. At the same time, they also affect the population's health because they can carry some risks with them. In BiH, during the pandemic, we had a migrant crisis in full swing, but with the quality response of the health system, as well as UN organizations and some non-governmental organizations, we managed to keep it under control,” he said.
The representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Erwin Cooreman, emphasized that globally, migration is nothing new, people leave their countries of origin for various reasons, but regardless of everything, their health is the most important.
The conference "Migrants' Health: Challenges and Opportunities" was held on October 20 and 21 in Ilidža, and the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Accreditation in FBiH participated in the organization.
(FENA) A. B.
