Dr. Stevanović ahead of Chamber session: Today doctors are saving healthcare

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Medical Chamber of Sarajevo Canton will elect a new president today at 2:00 PM, at the Assembly held at the Clinical Center of the University of Sarajevo. The candidates are Professor Ismet Gavrankapetanović from the General Hospital „Prim. dr. Abdulah Nakaš“ and doc. dr. Zaim Jatić from the Health Centers Institution.

About 150 doctors and the Independent Trade Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry have supported the candidacy of Dr. Gavrankapetanović. Unofficially, Dr. Jatić has the support of the General Director of the Clinical Center of the University of Sarajevo, Dr. Sebija Izetbegović.

On the eve of the Chamber's Electoral Assembly, doctors, part of today's Assembly delegates, reported strong pressure from the Clinical Center. They are being asked to support Dr. Jatić. Additionally, it is expected that today's vote could be public, which is also interpreted as pressure so that no delegate representing KCUS in the Chamber would secretly support Dr. Gavrankapetanović. Some Chamber delegates from KCUS were also summoned on Tuesday for a meeting with Dr. Enra Suljić, director of the Institute for Scientific Research and Development and one of Dr. Izetbegović's first associates.

„That would be illegal. The Statute of the Medical Chamber exclusively recognizes secret voting,“ Prim. dr. Fahrudin Kulenović, former president of the Medical Chamber of Sarajevo Canton, previously stated for Patria.

„Politics stole the Medical Chamber from doctors illegally at the beginning of 2017. I am proving exactly that in court,“ Kulenović added, explaining that the Assembly of the Medical Chamber in January last year, when pediatrician from the Clinical Center Dr. Raho Spahović was elected its president, was illegal, "because the fate of the Chamber was decided by people who were not even members of the Chamber."

The long-time president of the Management Board of the Medical Chamber of Sarajevo Canton, Dr. Dragan Stevanović, stated that „only someone who fears the will of the doctors and who achieves everything through fear and threats can demand a public vote.“

Citing Dr. Stevanović's statement, Avaz reports that in the case of a public vote, some delegates would leave today's Assembly of the Medical Chamber.

„Even at this moment, they can do everything if they want, but by force. That is why healthcare must be saved from such people at this session,“ said Dr. Stevanović.

Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH) recently published an „Analysis of the case of a captured state in the healthcare sector of Sarajevo Canton,“ in which it states that healthcare in Sarajevo Canton has been placed under strict control of Dr. Sebija Izetbegović, a member of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the wife of the party's president.

Transparency International notes that since Sebija Izetbegović was appointed director of the University Clinical Center Sarajevo, the three main pillars of the healthcare system of Sarajevo Canton have been placed under strict control of Dr. Izetbegović. „The three main pillars of the healthcare system of Sarajevo Canton – the University Clinical Center Sarajevo, the Faculty of Medicine of the State University, and the Medical Chamber of Sarajevo Canton – have been placed under strict control of Izetbegović, a prominent SDA member," the Transparency International analysis states.

Biographies of the candidates

Dr. Zaim Jatić is a specialist in family medicine. He is employed at the Health Centers of Sarajevo Canton. He works at the Health Center in Vrazova. He is the president of the Association of Family Medicine of Sarajevo Canton.

Professor Ismet Gavrankapetanović is a distinguished orthopedist. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo in 1986. He is a member of numerous domestic and international medical associations, including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, the British Orthopaedic Association, the European Society for Sports Traumatology, and a member of the British Elbow and Shoulder Society... He is currently employed at the General Hospital „Prim. dr. Abdulah Nakaš“ in Sarajevo.