A total of 6,695 migrants have received medical assistance. 330 migrants have been admitted to the Brežice hospital and 550 to other hospitals, Health Ministry state secretary Sandra Tušar said.

According to Tušar, the costs are covered by the Slovenian Health Ministry. The hospitals and health care facilities that treat migrants send the bills to the Health Ministry which reimburses them for the services they provide. The Health Ministry has sent them detailed instructions on how to go about this process.

Four refugees have died in Slovenia
Tušar said that the Ministry had issued no protocol on how to treat refugees. She added that potential cultural barriers must be considered when working with migrants, and sometimes communication is a problem, but other than that, there are no problems, which is why the ministry had issued no protocol for hospitals.

However, she stressed that the Ministry did issue a protocol for refugee centres, informing them about how to provide medical services in accordance with the International Protection Law.
So far, four migrants have died in Slovenian hospitals: two at the Maribor University Medical Centre, one at the Ptuj hospital and another at the Murska Sobota hospital.

Following these deaths, an interministerial group held a meeting to review the laws governing this issue. "The rules are clear. The municipalities have to cover the costs of a burial and other related costs – unless the deceased person's relatives are present," Tušar said, adding that the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology is currently examining other ways of covering these expenses.

A. Č.; translated by D. V.