Roma Community and Health Inequalities during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Romania

During a pandemic situation, already existing health inequalities tend to worsen. This study explores the inequalities in health care experienced by members of two Roma communities during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania. In August–September 2021, we conducted thirty ethnographic interviews: twenty in two Roma communities in Mure County, and ten with various professionals working with these communities, such as health mediators. The interview guide was developed considering anthropological and sociological perspectives on health. We conducted a thematic analysis and identified three relevant issues: (a) scepticism about COVID-19 and the vaccine; (b) the role of the health mediator before and during the pandemic; and (c) discrimination suffered before and during the pandemic with regard to medical attention. During the pandemic situation in Romania, in which inequalities were increasing, the work of health mediators as cultural facilitators was remarkable. They were interlocutors between the state's health-care institutions and its minority groups, and the Roma mediators provided valuable knowledge on the reality lived by the Roma communities.