Transient Groups

Health

Travellers who move from site to site are often not registered with a local GP or have difficulty in getting registered, this means GP’s don’t have complete sets of medical records and therefore no access to a medical history.

Those who are not registered with GP’s often use A & E departments as an alternative.

Very often children are not inoculated against the childhood diseases

1. due to their families’ nomadic lifestyle,

2. due to poor attendance at school,

3. because of the Travellers’ dislike of needles being seen as ‘dirty’.

Diseases like TB are often found in the Travelling community, again due to the lack of inoculations.

There is a high percentage of the travelling community, as compared to the house dwelling community, who suffer from heart disease, diabetes and other related conditions, this is thought to be due to their poor diet.

Arthritis is greater in amongst Gypsies and Travellers.

Children can often be seen with minor cuts and bruises due to their play activities on and around sites and there is a higher rate of serious accidents amongst travelling children.

Many travelling families do not want their children taught sex education in school.

It is important to remember that because of their cultural beliefs many women in the travelling community will want to be seen by a female doctor, nurse, paramedic etc, particularly if they are suffering from a gynaecological problem and they will not discuss gynaecological issues in front of men.