As of 15 February 2009, a document on the grounds of which internally displaced persons from Kosovo exercise their rights from health insurance is a health booklet. This means that the branches of the Republic Institute for Health Insurance, on the territory of which IDPs have temporary residence registered, issue health booklets instead of “Certificates for accessing health care and other rights from health insurance for temporarily displaced persons from the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.” The competent branch verifies health booklets for a period of 6 months, while the certificates were verified every 3 months.
After 10 years in displacement, internally displaced persons will be able to exercise their rights from health insurance on the grounds of a health booklet, on an equal basis with other citizens of Serbia.
Two months after the Instruction of the Ministry of Health came into force, the instruction which granted IDPs the above-mentioned right, branches of the Republic Institute for Health Insurance started issuing health booklets. According to information obtained from the Republic Institute, certificate for accessing health care and other rights from health insurance for temporarily displaced persons from the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, or IDP card if one does not possess this certificate, then confirmation on registered temporary residence and ID card should all be enclosed with the request for issuance of health booklet. In the procedure for issuance of a health booklet, even though an insured person possesses the aforementioned evidence, the competent branch of the Republic Institute is authorised to ask for other evidence, in case one fulfils conditions to be insured on their own in accordance with the Article 17 of the Law on Health Insurance (e.g. on the grounds of employment, independent work, acquiring pension after displacement, etc).
Persons who do not have registered temporary residence
Article 22 of the Law on Heath Insurance explicitly prescribes that persons of Roma nationality who do not have permanent or temporary residence registered due their traditional way of life may be beneficiaries of health protection. The legislator had undoubtedly had the intention to enable this category of persons to access health care. This provision of the Law can without doubt be applied to internally displaced persons of Roma nationality who do not have registered permanent or temporary residence.
Article 6 of the Rules of Procedure on way and procedure of exercise of rights from mandatory health insurance, however, derogates the application of this legal rule by stating that the insured must provide a personal statement that he/she is a person of Roma nationality, as well as his/her registration of temporary residence. In this way, persons who do not have their residence registered, for instance due to the fact that they live in an illegal Roma settlement - which is often the case with Roma IDPs - are actually deprived of the rights from health insurance, and exercise of the legal right to using health care services.
Download (Serbian only): News from March 2009 published in Pravi odgovor, page 14
