Prime Minister Pivić at a roundtable organized by INZ: No child should be left outside the healthcare system

(Patria) - Prime Minister of Zenica-Doboj Canton Nezir Pivić addressed the participants of the roundtable on healthcare for Roma children, organized by the Institute for Health and Food Safety Zenica (INZ) with the support of UNICEF and in cooperation with the Roma community and local partners, including the Municipality of Kakanj.

The roundtable "Improving Healthcare and Resolving Health Insurance Issues for Roma Children - Examples of Good Practice and Experiences" was organized with the aim of jointly assessing challenges and finding concrete solutions for the health insurance of Roma children, especially in the context of access to vaccination and health services for children not attending primary school.

Prime Minister Pivić congratulated the organizers and partners for opening a significant topic that concerns the very core of social responsibility - children's healthcare, which, as he said, is not a matter of political affiliation, but a legal and constitutional obligation. However, he added, practice shows that in certain situations, this right is interrupted, most often due to administrative reasons or inconsistent application of regulations.

- The Government of Zenica-Doboj Canton believes that no child should be left outside the healthcare system. We must pay special attention to children from socially vulnerable groups, including the Roma population, where administrative obstacles and systemic shortcomings are most evident. We see this roundtable as an opportunity to jointly assess where the system fails in practice and how, within the existing legal and financial framework, these challenges can be overcome. The solutions must be realistic, implementable, and sustainable, with clearly defined institutional responsibilities - said Prime Minister Pivić.

He emphasized that the Government of Zenica-Doboj Canton is ready to consider concrete and useful guidelines arising from this meeting and, in cooperation with the competent ministries, the Health Insurance Fund, local communities, and international partners, to find solutions that will remove obstacles and enable Roma, as well as all other children without health insurance, access to vaccination and all other health services.

Ministers - Health Dr. Aida Salčinović, Labor, Social Policy and Refugees Antonio Šimunović, and Justice and Administration Nebojša Nikolić also participated in the roundtable, among others.