State's Step-Motherly Attitude Toward the Medicines Agency Will Not Hinder Their Vaccine Control

(Patria) - President of the Union of the Agency for Medicines of Bosnia and Herzegovina Ramo Rustemović stated in an interview with Patria that he has a need, a chronic desire, and is still driven by despair, and especially has the motive and obligation to once again express dissatisfaction due to the frequent misunderstanding of policies at the level of the Council of Ministers, which at the very least have a step-motherly attitude toward the Agency for Medicines of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

"We still have unfilled positions with expert staff, who are key in certain positions for the functioning of the Agency. We continuously lack expert people who are retiring, leaving due to poor financial conditions. At the end of January, we have a termination of employment contract for a pharmacist who is leaving us due to a low salary, with a dowry of well-trained and qualified specialization in drug control. We have not yet filled vacant positions from several years ago, so how can we fill this latest vacant position? I am not sure in the near future, perhaps never," says Rustemović. 

The Agency for Medicines is in the service of preserving and improving the health of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, therefore we cannot treat it as an ordinary bureaucratic institution; it brings money into the budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"When you mention salaries, politics, due to its selfishness and bureaucratic procedures, does not know how to find a way to increase them, because they do not want to, and thus directly influence our people leaving, and we are left without expert staff and struggle to take over that type of work," notes Rustemović.

These days, there is much talk about Covid vaccines, and a portion arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina today. The Agency for Medicines will play a key role in all of this.

"I responsibly claim that all those that are sent to our Agency will be treated like all other medicines for which drug quality control is performed according to the requested parameters," says Rustemović.

All these problems that have plagued employees for many years since the establishment of the Agency could be systematically resolved through amendments to the Law on Medicines of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which the Agency would become a Regulatory Body and thus gain the ability to independently decide on the recruitment and employment of expert staff and its financial situation. 

"That is how agencies in the region operate, and our politicians readily and often refer to the status of those agencies," notes Rustemović.