These Are Our Problems Too: Children, Patients, and Veterans Cannot Win the Battle Against the System Alone

By: A. Varatanović

It is not the first time that attention in BiH has been diverted from substantive issues by the publication of "some virtuous writer," as was done on Thursday by the young SDA city councilor from Stari Grad, Tarik Dautović, raising the issue of renaming Marshal Tito Street to Alija Izetbegović Street.

While the debate over those who are for and against rages on, numerous problems in healthcare, the pension system, disenfranchised veterans, and unlawful conduct by authorities in the police have been pushed to the background. There is no room for them on social media or in the reactions of political parties.

Those who feel the flaws of the system we live in on their own skin are left to try to fight on those same social media platforms, hoping that someone, someday, will do something.

One desperate father, whose daughter has fallen ill with diabetes, called on all those who "waste their fingertips (imagine what they are like for little heroes who prick themselves at least ten times a day) writing statuses about Tito and Alija" to write a status about these little heroes.

- Put pressure on the 'almighty' to ensure these children have an easier upbringing, so that each of these little heroes, as in all normal countries, gets a device for painless blood glucose measurement. It is not expensive, 240 KM per month, and it means life to these heroes. Its name is LIBRA - wrote this father.

On the other hand, at the same time, appeals are coming from KCUS to stop the mobbing of doctors who opposed the dismissal of Dr. Ismet Gavrankapetanović. The doctors experienced unprecedented pressure and threats from director Sebija Izetbegović, and there will be no reaction from the Medical Chamber of the Sarajevo Canton, which is also under her control. Democracy of the 21st century.

Dialysis patients, who held peaceful protests on June 21, are still without adopted amendments to the transplantation law. In developed European countries, dialysis is only a temporary solution until transplantation. But in BiH, people spend almost their entire lives on dialysis. Although they have a 100% disability rating, the benefits they receive from the state range from 130 to 330 KM. This is not enough even for necessary medications and vitamins.

Is it possible that all this is less important than the "revolutionary ideas of the green youth"?

Since June 12, disenfranchised veterans, who gave their best years to defend BiH, have been spending their days lying on the ground next to the FBiH Government. To this day, there is no unified veterans' registry, no financial aid, and no cessation of funding for over 1,600 associations. But there is a retired general advising Prime Minister Fadil Novalić and appearing before exhausted veterans, protecting the authorities instead of his fellow soldiers.

And while we remain deaf and blind to others' problems (which are actually ours), we will individually lose battles against the system and the "powerful" individuals within it.