Hospital to cater to Roma traditions

A hospital in Gyongyos, E Hungary, has embarked on a mission to bring Roma integration one step closer, by setting up a special room where Roma patients and their visitors can practice the rituals of their culture.

The hospital has experienced problems with Roma visitors behaving very differently, often expressing more emotion than non-Roma people in connection with such life events as birth or mourning, head of the town's civil organisation for Roma integration told MTI on Friday. In 2002, six Roma family members and six police officers were injured in a clash at the hospital after staff called the police in reaction to some Roma mourning their deceased relative in a manner that was disturbing to non-Roma patients, Zsolt Lakatos said.

The new facility will allow Roma to experience the joys of childbirth or to mourn the loss of a loved-one in accordance with their own cultural traditions, Lakatos said. The hospital is also considering employing Roma liasion officers, Lakatos added.

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