At the end of last year, together with the Slovak equality body – Slovak National Centre for Human Rights – we met with the management of the Košice Rescue Medical Service. We talked to them about the problem of ambulance services refusing to come to patients, which we monitor in some excluded Roma communities. Representatives of the Medical Service explained to us at the time that if a patient calls the medical service dispatching centre and no ambulance is sent – this is a problem whose solution is the responsibility of the Operational Centre of the Emergency Medical Service.

Therefore, in cooperation with the equality body on 10 June 2024 we met with representatives of the Operational Centre of the Emergency Medical Service in Košice.

We see it as positive that the Operations Centre was open to discussion. We pointed out, among other things, that during our monitoring in excluded Roma communities, we repeatedly document what we consider to be a discriminatory attitude of the Operations Centre towards Roma. In particular, we receive complaints from women in labour, to whom the dispatching centre refuses to send an ambulance after a call is made. They justify this on the grounds that they have to come in their own cars, or they will send it later, when the woman has already given birth.

We hope that the meeting will contribute to improving the situation. At our NGO we will continue to monitor possible discriminatory manifestations in this respect in the excluded Roma communities.