“First among Bosniaks” runs hospital as if it were private, no one dares to control her

From the moment the Management Board appointed Prof. Dr. Rusmir Mesihović as the Director of the University Clinical Center Sarajevo, “first among Bosniaks” Professor Sebija Izetbegović, Director of the General Hospital “Prim.dr. Abdulah Nakaš”, started to fight tooth and nail to contest this appointment because she had reserved that chair for herself immediately after the election, writes the Patria News Agency.

By pressuring her husband Bakir Izetbegović, a member of the BiH Presidency, she obtained a public statement from the SDA demanding the annulment of Mesihović’s appointment. However, as this did not yield results, through the Minister of Health in the Government of Sarajevo Canton Eldan Lokmić (who was promised some minor position for this), she arranged for the Government to adopt a conclusion that Mesihović is in a conflict of interest, and that the Management Board is illegitimate, even though the only authority for appointments at the KCUS according to legal regulations is the Government of FBiH.

Mesihović is not in a conflict of interest, because the day after his appointment, and in accordance with the law, he resigned as the federal Minister of Health. And the Management Board, which the “first among Bosniaks” is now trying to contest, was not questioned when Prof. Dr. Faris Gavrankapetanović was appointed, or when Prof. Dr. Damir Aganović was appointed and dismissed.

As employees of the General Hospital told the Patria News Agency, on condition of anonymity due to fear of the director’s revenge, she has been boasting for months that she will take over KCUS. But now that she realized she is losing that battle, she started saying she will be the federal Minister of Health.

Izetbegović took charge of the General Hospital even before she officially took the chair, say employees of this healthcare institution. The staff learned about this through informal decrees.

The Management Board was dismissed in such a way that Prim. Dr. Dragan Stevanović, a respected internist and member of the old Management Board, immediately filed a lawsuit against the cantonal government. And after everyone knew about the decree, the new Management Board held a session in the evening, and in just half an hour appointed the “first among Bosniaks” as the new head of the hospital. The opposing candidates had no chance, such as the head of the Union, Prim. Dr. Abud Sarić, a surgeon, or Prim. Dr. Stevanović, and Dr. Bakir Nakaš was professionally degraded in the most brutal way possible.

It is little known that one of the once honorable heroes in white, Dr. Ranko Čović, an SDA member, received the position of Deputy Mayor of Sarajevo from the Serb people for his vote in the Management Board. Of course, the Deputy Mayor’s salary for being a figurehead is just an addition to the fee in the hospital’s Management Board.

- It was sad to watch one of Sarajevo’s most famous doctors, Dr. Milan Mandilović, hand over his duties to Izetbegović with fear and discomfort, because Dr. Nakaš refused the humiliating ceremony. After a few days, the staff learned that the former director had not received his job as an infectologist, but a fictitious position as head of a non-existent “discipline” for management and quality. Since he did not even get an office, he had to go to the hospital library, say our sources from the General Hospital, and add:

- Dr. Eldan Lokmić, the Minister of Health, did not and still does not dare to touch or supervise the General Hospital, and he trembles before Sebija. Sebija furiously and brazenly started running the hospital as if it were a private institution – suddenly there was money for the building’s cosmetic repairs.

The corridors and wards were repainted, while the equipment in the Intensive Care Unit of the Internal Medicine Department has fallen apart. The asphalt in front of the building was repaired, and the mattresses in Surgery are 30 years old. She increased the salaries of primarius doctors by 5%, while the bedside tables in Internal Medicine have no drawers. She gave the heads of departments new smartphones and 50 KM for top-ups, while the patients are wearing pajamas that are 20 years old or more. There are no beds, but there are promotions for companies that have given the hospital new benches in the park in order to push expensive hand sanitizers.

For the employees of the General Hospital, specifically the medical technicians, their ordeal only deepened with her arrival.

- She brutally refused to solve the burning issue of medical technicians who have been working on fixed-term contracts for 4 years, and whom, like her predecessor, she is sending for work interruptions for the second time, using a loophole in the law. Classic exploitation, while at the same time, 6-7 technicians and doctors from KCUS or even from Konjic (!!!) came to the hospital and received contracts on the first day.

Sad, but true, several nurses and technicians have already left the hospital, whose services are clearly more valued in Germany than in Sebija’s vision, where only the “children” of those from her party circle can get a job, explain our sources, some of whom are respected doctors but are afraid to speak publicly for fear of losing their jobs because they are not SDA members nor are they in her favor.