A two-day workshop will take place in Athens (Greece) on June 8-9, with a panel of expert scientists from universities and bodies from European countries, in the context of a wider European project coordinated by the Clinic of Social and Family Medicine (CSFM) of the School of Medicine of the University of Crete (UoC, Greece) under the auspices of the European Union (EU). This is a pan-European project, funded by the Consumers, Health and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA), aiming to develop the “EUropean Refugees – Human Movement and Advisory Network – EUR-HUMAN”. “EUR-HUMAN” was kick-started six months ago.
The two-day workshop is organised by the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (Netherlands) in collaboration with the “EUR-HUMAN” Coordinator, CSFM of the School of Medicine of the UoC (Greece). More specifically, the two-day workshop will take the form of a consensus building process, for the purpose of decision-making to determine the type and content of integrated and person-centred services, and of primary health care for refugees and migrants in all Europan countries. Notably, the starting point for evaluating the needs of refugees is defined as their arrival time – entry point in a European country, with continuous, nevertheless, re-evaluation of the emotional, psychosocial and physical health during their movement and possible relocation.
This two-day workshop represents a crucial point in the project progress as it will constitute the basis for the development of guiding statements and guidelines for the design of selected interventions targetting arriving refugees in six selected European countries (Greece, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia). To this effect, guiding statements will be discussed along with interventions for the providers of care to refugees and migrants, along with practical guiding statements on the basis of the current EU policy regarding cross-border care and migration. The project deliverables are expected to be the object of knowledge transfer across all EU countries, particularly the main countries of entry and reception, but, also, those of temporary stay of refugees (i.e., “transit” countries), always taking into consideration the local context.
Given the flows towards all European countries coordinated cross-border actions and support is required by all competent bodies, particularly in the public health and primary health care sectors. The objectives of ”EUR-HUMAN” include regular updates to the media, bodies, but, also, citizens, about how the various project actions are progressing, as well as regarding the overall project progress, and including result dissemination upon project completion.
To this effect, the CSFM of the School of Medicine of the UoC has developed and regularly updates the project web site: http://eurhuman.uoc.gr/
On behalf of the Scientific Coordinator,
Christos Lionis, Professor of General Practice and Primary Health Care,
School of Medicine, University of Crete
