An ambulance was on its way to an address in a Roma neighborhood. Local boys with a moped escorted the ER team, due to the lack of street names and actual addresses. The vehicle stopped suddenly in front of a huge hole, the boys behind crashed in it and one of them was slightly injured. The doctor stepped out, in order to take care of the injured guy. At the same time his friend started to curse and hit her head, as the ambulance had caused the hit.

Last week that case stirred up public opinion in Bulgaria, as there had been others before. That caused the emotional reaction of Minister of Healthcare Petar Moskov, ordering ER teams not to respond to calls from Roma neighborhoods, if their safety is not guaranteed. Moskov explained it with the fact that three out of four accidents with ER doctors happened in Roma ghettos. The words of the minister caused a real storm of explanations and accusations. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee human rights organization said the words of Moskov were “a racist threat” and oppositional leaders used the moment to demand his resignation. However, doctors supported their minister as one and ambulances across the country are now carrying posters in his support. Social networks are also overflowing with appeals, supporting the minister. Perhaps the wave of public reactions would have been avoided if Bulgaria had marked any progress in the integration of the Roma minority. Those people live amidst a total lack of any statehood and with a dominating sense of impunity. Few Roma people work and few Roma kids visit school. One can hardly imagine that they would pay any taxes or have addresses. The lack of healthcare insurance makes them abuse ER teams and call 112 even for a sore throat. ER doesn’t make difference between people, who pay their healthcare security instalments and those, who don’t.

The criticism of NGOs in this case is well-grounded, regarding the humane and legal aspect of Minister Moskov’s words. However, one should bear in mind that human rights activists watch the assaults on ER only on TV. That is why their politically correct demands are hypocritical, as obviously the everyday life of ER teams in Roma ghettos is accompanied by brutality, violence and impunity. At the same time the entire society is to be blamed for this, not only Roma people.

The three categories of negative behavior mentioned above exist in thousands of depopulated Bulgarian villages, where helpless elderly people have been robbed and harassed for years. Several hens stolen, or jars with peppers, may be called petty crime by police statistics, but for the old persons with miserable pensions those small things are sometimes a question of survival. Police authorities have given up, regarding Roma assaults, but would never admit that in public, as it is not politically correct.

Perhaps those human rights activists would turn their back on their endless conferences and workshops on Roma inclusion, in order to work for a practically implementable Roma integration process in the long term? I don’t think so. At the same time they hardly realize that we live in a society that would really love to be liberal and grounded on common values, but actually consists of poor and indifferent citizens. ER doctors beaten up are only a part of the puzzle.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev