According to the data of the Medical Chamber, between 30 and 40 specialists and 25 medical doctors left the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the past year.
According to dr. According to Rifat Rijad Zaid, the president, the data is incomplete because two cantons – Herzegovina-Neretva and West Herzegovina – are not members of the FBiH Medical Chamber.
– It is about the number of 65 doctors, with the fact that even that figure is not entirely accurate, because the Federal Chamber receives data based on the form from the cantonal chambers, but there are doctors of medicine who are not enrolled in the chamber, but leave Bosnia and Herzegovina immediately after graduating from the Faculty of Medicine and go to work abroad – explains Zaid.
He states that he is not clear on the reasons why the medical chambers of Herzegovina-Neretva and West Herzegovina are still not members of the umbrella chamber.
– I hope that this year the leadership of those two chambers will understand the legality of work and the possibility of joint improvement of the health system in the Federation. I have already held discussions with my colleagues and I hope that we will finish that soon so that they become our members – adds Zaid.
He says that there is an increasingly pronounced trend of specialists and medical doctors moving from the public to the private sector. The reason, he says, is higher wages and better working conditions.
– This is a big problem, because there is a fear that some of the most prominent and best doctors in public health institutions will leave and move to the private sector, which would change the conditions of the health system for the insured. That is the first thing, and the second is that there really are such conditions in private hospitals, clinics, surgeries that our public health sector cannot currently monitor. But what can be done is to continue improving the working conditions of doctors, but also of all healthcare workers in the public sector. This is, of course, a matter of the collective agreements of health unions that they create, and on the other hand, the understanding of the governments of individual cantons – emphasizes Zaid.
He notes that in some parts of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, doctors’ salaries are not even close to the level they should be. On the other hand, as he says, the private sector does not wait, it immediately offers conditions that are more than good for Bosnian standards.
– Of course, I don’t think that everything is in the financial status, in this case of doctors or health workers. I think that working conditions, which have both sides, are very important. There is also that part of the health system that is primarily aimed at patients and was created as such, and another part that is aimed at health professionals, in this case doctors. Such a system must protect both. Public health institutions must be good creators of conditions that are satisfactory for everyone. I think that the private health system, at least in the near future, will not offer the conditions that the public health sector can, we just have to preserve and improve it – says Zaid.
He points out that the differences in the salaries of doctors in the public and private sectors range from 200 to 500 percent.
– We have parts of the Federation where within the public health system, despite the huge and energetic struggle of the trade unions, there are differences in basic salaries of up to 40 percent. Imagine the force that drives doctors from smaller communities to larger health centers. The Medical Chamber of the FBiH and the Medical Chamber of the Central Bosnia Canton received a request from the Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry to somehow get involved in an attempt to improve the status of doctors in Central Bosnia. We have centrifugal forces, Zenica, Sarajevo and Tuzla, which attract the best and most productive staff from SBK, because in those centers the basic income of doctors is 40 percent higher than in that canton, he writes. Zenicablog.
We are trying to help reach an agreement between the Union and the Government of SBK in order to preserve the doctors in that environment – said Zaid.
