The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 180180 THE SCARS OF THE ERASUREassistance varies greatly (ranging from very restrictive to very liberal readings),leading to potential violation of this right, i.e. refusal to provide urgent medicalcare or charging a fee for it. Mara (see above) and Miloš experienced such a vio -lation. On several occasions, Miloš had to pay for urgent medical treatment atthe University Medical Center in Ljubljana:M: I cut off my finger, ripped open my knee, once I broke my rib and anothertime I tripped over logs and had concussion.S: You said before that you had to pay for these injuries?M: Yes.S: How much did you pay?M: When my finger was stitched, I paid 36 thousand tolars.S: Yes.M: And I had to pay 5 or 6 thousand tolars for every examination [...]S: When you cut off your finger you went to the emergency ward?M: Yes. I had to pay up front at the emergency ward, it was 10 thousand tolarsat that time, and only after that they admitted me. They won’t admit you otherwise,they won’t…S: Unless you pay up front?M: Yes. When they stitched my finger I went home and brought back the rest ofthe money.S: But you were admitted without being asked about your documents?M: No, they first asked me if I was a self-payer, but I said no, what could I say?S: But when you paid 10 thousand tolars up front, nobody objected to admittingyou?M: No. But they first said that I had to pay 10 thousand tolars or they wouldn’ttake me in. (Miloš, 50)Miloš’s experience clearly shows that the provision about urgent medicaltreatment was violated. Furthermore, erased people’s stories indicate that suchviolations occurred more frequently during the early 1990s than later. Nevertheless,in the past as well as today, this area has been characterized by confusion,ambiguity and arbitrary conduct. It is a situation in which the legal logic gives into the principle of arbitrariness because of vague legal provisions (Ticktin 2006,37, Lipovec Čebron 2009a, 2009b), and collective decisions become a matterof individual judgment. In the absence of in-depth research among medical workers,it is difficult to reach a general conclusion on how the erased people weretreated when they turned to health care institutions seeking assistance. Yet thefragmentary statements by certain doctors and the stories of erased people leadus to believe that (at least) some doctors circumvented legal vagueness by persistentlyfollowing the code of medical ethics: