Parents are moving children out of BiH so they can be operated on by doctors who cannot do so at KCUS

By: Amra Varatanović

By the end of this month, the House of Representatives of the FBiH will hold a thematic session on the situation in the healthcare sector and the situation at KCUS. The session will also be attended by SDA representative Sebija Izetbegović, who has been the director of the Clinical Center of the University of Sarajevo since 2016, and the Board of Directors has elected her for another term. 

From 2016 until today, more than 100 doctors and medical staff have left KCUS. To this day, this staffing deficit has not been compensated for, nor can it be for the next ten years. KCUS has been left by several professors whose knowledge and experience are valued worldwide. These very doctors have been left without the possibility to perform surgical procedures on the youngest patients in Sarajevo, even though two hospitals exist, and children are being moved out of Sarajevo or BiH, most often to Turkey, where operations are performed. 

The legal struggle and the ordeals that parents go through with institutions are rarely discussed. The parents themselves do not want to come forward. After the case of the girl Nadin Smajlović, whose further treatment at KCUS was refused by Izetbegović and who must receive therapy in Turkey, parents of sick children are on extra alert. 

One of the doctors who must perform surgical procedures outside Sarajevo, and even BiH, is Professor Ismet Gavrankapetanović. Although he is employed at the General Hospital, due to the status of that hospital, which does not have pediatric orthopedics, and due to KCUS's refusal to allow the performance of surgical procedures in its operating room, the professor is prevented from performing surgical procedures on children under 15 years old. 

Although the relevant Minister of Health of the Sarajevo Canton, Amela Sofić (DF), is aware of all these problems, there is no interest in enabling the youngest patients to receive adequate medical services in Sarajevo hospitals. According to information obtained by the Patria News Agency, hundreds of children are waiting for operations at KCUS that are not being performed. Several top orthopedists who left KCUS cannot operate in KCUS operating rooms, but this is enabled for doctors from Belgrade. Our source claims that the operating rooms of KCUS are almost private property, and no one controls this. 
Parents should not be interested in legal procedures, political intolerance, personal animosities, or party affiliations of those who decide the fate of their sick children. It is precisely out of this fear that many do not want to come forward, but instead arrange to move their children out of BiH on their own. 

The request for a thematic session was submitted on November 21, 2019, by the clubs of representatives of SDP BiH, Our Party, People and Justice, Independent Bloc, A-SDA, and PDA in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of BiH. In the explanation of the request, signed by more than 20 representatives, it is stated that the public in BiH witnesses disturbing information daily about events at KCUS and that there are numerous statements and testimonies from patients and doctors about this.

"In addition, information is published daily about the departure of specialist doctors who are leaving KCUS due to disrupted interpersonal relationships, mobbing, intimidation, blackmail, and threats. All of this is happening without any reaction from the Federal Ministry of Health and the Government of FBiH, which silently observes all these events," the request states.

The parliamentarians state that it is high time for the Ministry of Health and the Government of FBiH to start fulfilling their legal obligations and inform the Parliament of FBiH about the situation at KCUS, in order to adopt conclusions and measures to stop the obvious and numerous irregularities in the largest clinical institution in BiH and protect the citizens being treated there.