Dozens of specialist doctors and doctors of medicine leave the FBiH every year, and the lack of personnel in some health institutions threatens the collapse of the entire health system, warns the Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry of the FBiH. The President of the Trade Union, Marina Berberović, says that we lack thousands of doctors, both medical doctors and all specialists.
Departure of young people
– It depends from canton to canton, but in most cantons there is a shortage of anesthesiologists. Specialists in emergency medicine are also severely understaffed. In HNK, you have 5 or 6 specialists in the entire canton. A few years ago, you didn’t have any cardiologists, pediatricians in the Health Centers in the whole Posavina Canton… I don’t think we have a single branch of medicine that is not in deficit, the only question is which institution has the most deficit – says Berberović.
The departure of young specialists from Bosnia and Herzegovina stands out as a special problem.
– The state has invested a lot of money in their education, specializations cost extra in order to get a specialist who is ready to work to the full extent and he goes abroad. You’ve lost it, and you can’t replace it for the next 6 to 7 years. A huge problem with us is that the age structure of doctors is unfavorable, that you have a large number of them who are about to retire in the last 10 years, and that this is not taken into account either. The federal ministry should react to it in time – emphasizes Berberović.
One of the pressing problems is the uneven rights of doctors, so the amount of the basic salary varies from canton to canton by up to 50 percent. Berberović states that the salaries of specialist doctors vary from 2,400 to 3,600 KM, and that of medical doctors from 2,000 to 3,000 KM. KS leads the way, and the lowest salaries are in Posavski, Livanjski and ZHK. In the EU, the salary of doctors is 3 to 4 times higher. This situation results in the departure of personnel to larger cities and the EU.
Working conditions
The Minister of Health in the Sarajevo Canton, Enis Hasanović (SDP), told us that the staff deficit in this canton has been reduced to a good extent by improving working conditions, and that even staff from private ones are returning to public health institutions, and doctors from the RS are already working in them, as well as from most of the smaller towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
– At one point, we received all the doctors from the office, but the Health Center, due to systematization, could not receive more doctors. Now we have adopted a new regulation and approved the admission of 50 new doctors. I have approved every request for the admission of medical personnel in health institutions. We have awarded about 400 specializations and subspecializations so far, and on Friday I sent a request to the federal minister for the approval of about 100 more specializations and 25 subspecializations – Hasanović told us.
And up to 2,200 patients
In the absence of thousands of doctors, currently employed are overwhelmed by the number of patients. The trade union, together with the FBiH Medical Chamber, requested changes to the Law on Health Care, which would precisely define that one family medicine team takes care of 1,500, instead of the current 2,000-2,200 patients. This would avoid a situation where one doctor has to perform 50 to 70 examinations a day, which is practically impossible.
– Too few doctors work with the number of patients they have to, not the number they can handle – says Berberović.
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