EQUITA
Equity in health means ensuring that everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances, has a fair and just opportunity to achieve their best possible health outcomes.
At EQUITA, we support individuals facing barriers to healthcare and protection services due to social exclusion, poverty, and humanitarian crises. Our comprehensive services, including health consultations, social support, protection for survivors of gender-based violence, and referrals to specialized care, are provided within vulnerable communities across Slovakia. We are committed to addressing both local and national emergencies, with a focus on supporting the most marginalized and affected individuals and communities.
Hospital – A Safe Place
for Supporting Survivors
of Violence
For the past three years, we have been providing trainings on first-line response to survivors for medical professionals at Slovak hospitals.
Gender-based violence affects a significant number of people in Slovakia. For example, 28 % of women have experienced physical violence in an intimate relationship during their lifetime, and 14.2 % of adult women have experienced sexual violence.
Hospitals are increasingly focusing on providing comprehensive care that considers not only physical but also mental health. Health care professionals are seen by survivors as a trusted point of contact and may be the first or only experts to whom survivors disclose violence and abuse.
For hospitals recognizing gender-based violence has not only social but also practical benefits, such as better health outcomes or reduced treatment costs.
Hospitals in Slovakia have a significant advantage - they operate continuously, have multidisciplinary teams, and have the potential to network specialized support services for survivors.
The aim of the project is to ensure that healthcare facilities can respond to the needs of survivors of violence and patients facing discrimination through education and procedural adjustments, in line with national an international standards.
What matters most to us... is the feedback of our clients.
Viktoriia, Košice, client of a case manager
"I highly appreciate your work. Thank you for your warm, compassionate approach and the help you provided—without which we certainly wouldn't have managed."
Sasha, EQUITA Help line client
"Great work by Dr. Mane from the Helpline: she got all of Levice back on its feet. I needed insulin, and the doctors prescribed it for me. Mane helped me tremendously."
Ielena, EQUITA Community Centre client
"Thank you for the health you help us maintain; for the communication we miss; for the desire to live; and for the beautiful moments. With our greetings and gratitude!"
Marek, student of Comenius University School of Medicine, EQUITA gender based violence seminar participant
"I was genuinely pleasantly surprised by the quality and delivery of the information; I took away important insights from the seminar for my future practice."
Our work
THANKS TO YOUR SUPPORT...
Thanks to your donations:
...for over 7 years we were able to provide healthcare to individuals experiencing homelessness, refugees from Ukraine, irregular migrants, marginalized Roma communities, and women and girls facing gender-based violence.
In 2023 we provided...
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over 23,000 medical and psychosocial interventions for people with barriers in access to healthcare
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healthcare services to 6,327 people who experienced loss of housing, war, violence, and health- or mental disabilities
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assistance in finding a medical provider for 1,046 people who do not know their way around the Slovak healthcare system, or who were rejected
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over 350 women with information about women's rights and health including services for gender-based violence survivors
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training for 536 healthcare professionals on providing healthcare to survivors of gender-based violence
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a year-long course on relationship and sex education 318 primary school students from marginalised Roma communities
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long-term support more than 15 women who experienced various forms of gender-based violence
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cultural and social services at EQUITA Community Center in Bratislava to more than 400 emigrants from Ukraine
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205 Ukrainian refugees completed a three-month Slovak language course for foreigners
Assistance to Ukrainian Refugees
ДОПОМОГА БІЖЕНЦЯМ З УКРАЇНИ
We provide services to Ukrainian refugees through EQUITA Helpline and outreach teams across Slovakia. We offer assistance with information, navigating the healthcare system, social and mental health support or individual case management. We provide suport survivors of violence.
Ми надаємо послуги українським біженцям через телефонну лінію та виїзні команди по всій Словаччині. У співпраці з партнерами ми пропонуємо інформаційну допомогу, орієнтацію в системі охорони здоров’я або прямі медичні послуги по всій Словаччині людям, яким загрожує позбавлення права на охорону здоров’я.
HEALTHCARE SERVICES
Our team includes doctors, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, project coordinators, administrative staff, logisticians, and mental health experts. Together, we offer professional medical consultations and, in partnership with other organizations, comprehensive healthcare along with social and material assistance.
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE
We work in the field, in the environment of clients, to whom we provide healthcare according to their needs. We operate throughout Slovakia. The medical team provides medical consultations and wound care, medical education and offers medical supplies for homeless people - twice a week in the evening in addition to the distribution of hot meals directly under the Lanfranconi bridge since 2020.
RESPONSE TO GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
We provide our clients with psychosocial support, medical advice, mediation, accompaniment, and coordination of the necessary health care. We connect them to partner organizations capable of assisting persons experiencing violence in the legal and social spheres. We provide services in Slovak, Ukrainian, Hungarian and English. Our experts are trained in the field of clinical management of sexual violence by the United Nations Population Fund - UNFPA.
ADVOCACY ACTIVITIES
We are engaged in legislative advocacy activities with the aim of pointing out systemic deficiencies leading to the exclusion of hundreds of thousands of people from health care. We collect data from our practice and publish analyzes for the purpose of raising awareness about the situation in practice and system deficiencies that affect vulnerable people. Our publication The Right to Health offers a situational analysis and proposed solutions that are essential for moving in a positive direction in access to health care in Slovakia.
RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
We are involved in research activities in the field of homelessness, sexual and reproductive rights, or more generally access to health care. We carry out research independently or participate in the activities of partner organizations or individual researchers. Our goal is to project results to our work in the field, as well as to advocacy activities.
PARTNERS
