It is easier to open a clinic for treating people in Sarajevo than a clinic for animals

In the Canton of Sarajevo, there are currently about a hundred young veterinarians waiting for their first employment, and several hundred are unemployed in the entire Federation, reports the BH News Agency Patria.

Experts blame the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Water Management and Forestry, and specifically Minister Jerko Ivanković Lijanović, for this devastating situation in the veterinary profession in the FBiH. He has yet to change the controversial regulation that makes it almost impossible to open a private veterinary clinic in the FBiH, thus increasing the number of unemployed veterinarians each year.

Nihad Fejzić, Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Sarajevo, does not want to point fingers at anyone, but he says it is evident that something must change with this regulation to prevent a complete collapse of the veterinary profession.

- It is now easier to open a clinic for treating people in Sarajevo than a clinic for treating animals – says Fejzić.

- In Belgrade, you have 150 veterinary clinics, in Zagreb 50, in Ljubljana between 30 and 40, and in Sarajevo, you have barely five. This is because in Sarajevo, a young veterinarian needs between 50,000 and 100,000 KM to open a veterinary clinic. Clearly, no young person has that kind of money – warns Dr. Fejzić. He says that by relaxing the legislation regulating this area, i.e., harmonizing it with EU standards, not a single veterinarian in Sarajevo would be unemployed within a year.

- The Ministry of Agriculture, Water Management and Forestry must take action on this issue – warns Professor Fejzić, writes Patria.