Investigating the Role of Intercultural Mediators in Enhancing Asylum-Seeking Migrants' Access to Health Care Services in Serbia

Migrants are especially susceptible to inequitable access to health care services and their access to health care may be further compromised by the tradition of informal patient payments in the Western Balkan countries. As a particularly vulnerable group, this study focused on the asylum-seeking migrants and the role of informal patient payments as an avenue for migrants' health care access in Serbia. Qualitative interviews were conducted in August and September of 2018 with civil servants (intercultural mediators and information workers, n = 8) and asylum-seeking migrants (n = 6). Data was analyzed using the phenomenological hermeneutical approach. The study showed that intercultural mediators had a pivotal role in shaping better and quicker access to health care services for asylum-seeking migrants in Serbia, which also lowered their exposure to informal patient payments. A commonness in paying informally was found in Serbia, especially due to the high value put into doctors and the lacking resources of the health care system. The asylum-seeking migrants seemed exempted from such payments. Reducing these informal patient payments for health care is highly important to facilitate equity in access to health care This study seeks to understand the barriers and facilitators of non-western asylum-seeking migrants' access to health care in Serbia. We have interviewed asylum-seekers themselves and professionals around them to understand this issue. We found that intercultural mediators played a large role in facilitating access to health care of the asylum seekers. The introduction of these mediators could therefore be expanded. For their success, the intercultural mediators however need protection and stability to provide long-term solutions in the migration response. Decision-makers in Western Balkan or European countries should therefore emphasize a systematic and comprehensive position while providing psychosocial support, supervision, and training to the intercultural mediators.