Health experts often emphasize – “that what we feel good, it doesn’t have to mean we’re healthy.”
According to statistics, close to 80 percent of the disease can be prevented or healed if they are discovered on time, and that is just the period when another person does not feel symptoms.
Therefore, there are preventive inspections that have long been the foundation of their health systems, because they have long understood that prevention is not a luxury, but the need is not a cost, but investment.
Systematic overview of the entire population
In that segment, Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot boast, although individual cantons in the Federation of BiH, the Canton of Sarajevo, the Marine-Neretva, the Tuzla Canton, introduced preventive examinations for certain types of patients’ reports.
But what is with screening programs at the level of the Federation of BiH and what work in the Federal Ministry of Health, we asked Prim. dr. Gorana Čerkeza, Assistant Minister for Public Health.
The screening program is one of the prevention program methods, a more accurate systematic overview of the entire population.
Cerkez says it is a process that is conducted in cooperation with the European Union as a financier.
– Things take place as agreed, step by step – a snapshot of the situation, mapping, research, then supplementing everything in terms of equipment, educating the staff and make programs and funding projections. What has been done so far is Mapping for breast and cervix cancer, while the prostate and column cancer process is underway. In parallel, certain research on the ground are working, which will include clinics in the FBiH, but also patients who are treated, and requested to give their views on preventive programs. By the end of this year, all the research was completed by the European Commission to see the real situation, opportunities and needs of money, as they will be used to create prerequisites for screening programs, such as the equipment.
In parallel, according to our interlocutor, other funds are used, such as the World Bank Fund, whose funds will be used to purchase mammograms.
– We work in order to end the work as soon as possible and as soon as possible with screening programs, “Cerkez adds.
Will take 30 million KM
When asked, when that could be, Cerkez responds that, assuming the FBiH Parliament approve funds to the Government, 2027. It should be the year when the Federal Ministry of Health could begin with screening programs.
– When the program is made and human resources are arranged in the extent that we need, when we determine the ways of implementing screenings in relation to the results of research from the field, the following phase will be funding. This is where the main word will be conducted by the Federal Parliament, which approves the money. It is a process that is not at all cheap, because it will surely take 30 million KM, and already to insure money but now should begin to think. Also, the decision will be made whether the program will be implemented and funded by the Federal Ministry of Health, because these activities are not provided by the vertical programs of the FBiH, or the cantons will be realized in or by a combination of FBiH and Canton participation. These decisions are very important for the future of the program. In the meantime, the Federal Ministry of Health will look at all available resources and potential obstacles to be removed or improved – will be promoting Čerkez.
Recalls that in FBiH still there is still no legal legislation that response to a screening program is binding, writing Factor.
Therefore, as Cerkez says, he must work on raising the consciousness in people about the welfare of the screening program.
– Not now, the example works, no woman with a certain health risk and for certain years, if she wants, does not prevent anything into a health facility and get an inspection within his health insurance. However, the fact is that women do not go to examinations, nor men, and to appear a doctor when the disease has already advanced. The essence is that they do not use what their health care system provides. Therefore, it is a key thing to raise awareness of preventive examinations, but it is not just the competence of the Federal Ministry of Health, which is done by the media, which are key, educational institutions, but also society as a whole – Cerkez said.
