Dr. Đokanović on Reform: Citizens Should Manage Their Own Money and Choose Where to Get Treated

Prominent Sarajevo pediatrician, UKCS physician Dr. Dragan Đokanović, in an interview with Patria, presented his view on the reform of the healthcare system in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, he emphasizes, should be “serious, radical and comprehensive”.

-The reform of the healthcare system in Sarajevo Canton, if the Canton wants to be the first in BiH to do so, must begin by reforming the existing health fund in such a way that health insurance policyholders start managing their own money.

It does not have to be one hundred percent disposal of one's own money, because there will always be those categories of the population that simply cannot work or earn, and for whose treatment the state must provide money from its budget, but to whom the state (through the adoption and implementation of laws) also directs a portion of the money from health insurance policyholders for their treatment, says Dr. Đokanović.

He explains that when a health insurance policyholder manages their own money, they will be able to choose both the doctor and the healthcare facility where they seek medical help.

-In such a situation, both private and public healthcare facilities are equal and have the opportunity to be chosen; to work honestly and earn honestly.

A serious project of health reforms in the Canton, or in the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina, cannot be implemented without financial support from the EU, i.e., credit funds which I am sure we would obtain with significant concessions for a serious project.

These funds, under absolutely the same conditions, should be received by both the public and private healthcare sectors. Reformed health funds would resemble banks more than existing funds. Policyholders would have their health cards, just as they now have current accounts, and would keep track of the amount of money they have at their disposal at any given moment, says Dr. Đokanović.

This would, he notes, certainly force them to think more about preserving their own health!

-In a relatively short time, all healthcare facilities, both private and public, would get used to the newly formed "market" and only those that deserve it would survive.

Public hospitals, of course, would not depend on the market; they would exist on state money collected from taxes and a certain percentage of health insurance policyholders' money, where only those citizens who are unable to work and earn would be treated.

With such changes to the healthcare system, we would leave behind the inhumane times when the sick traveled from one end of the country to another for health, passing by nearby towns and medical centers where they could have received appropriate healthcare.

The announced changes to the healthcare system in Sarajevo Canton are cosmetic in nature, and are detrimental to certain categories of the population such as school children, students, police officers... Here too, the authorities have "captured" the money of health insurance policyholders and for that money they have their own healthcare facilities, which they have now, it seems, decided to slightly "restructure".

All this reminds me of the recent case at KCUS when the general director and her people captured the money from doctors' membership fees and decided, by disposing of it, to "restructure" the medical chamber. Basically, these same people, "reinforced" by the current Minister of Health, are the ringleaders of the announced "reform" of healthcare in the canton.

Let me remind you that the money from doctors' membership fees had to be returned to the doctors. Similarly, the money of health insurance policyholders, which the authorities currently dispose of sovereignly and which, it seems, they have no intention of "restructuring," must one day be returned to the health insurance policyholders, concludes Dr. Đokanović.