Insight view

THE COUNTRY: PUBLIC GOODS
Right to medications and treatment
exercised by media pressure
The Health Fund is the institution whose work is constantly subject to complaints by citizens. In the
case of Vladimir Vukčević, the Health Fund persistently refused to refer him to a London hospital
specialized in his disease, angiodysplasia of blood vessels of intestines, in 2009. The TV program
“Robin Hood” proved that our health system failed in case of treatment of the man who was referred
for intestinal surgery, which saved his life, only after pressure was exerted by the media.
The lack of medications in state-owned drugstores at the end of 2014 made a disconcertingly great
number of pensioners and other citizens face the situation where they could not continue undergoing
the necessary therapy. Several months following the elaboration of this issue in our program,
the state decided that the citizens who could not find medications in state-owned drugstores are
allowed to obtain medications from private drugstores, with submission of a prescription. However,
since November 2015, medications could again be obtained only in state-owned drugstores.
The negligence and mistakes of doctors are almost never sanctioned by competent authorities.
Two fatal cases followed by the public had one thing in common, this being the non-observance of
the Labour Law. This law stipulates the suspension of doctors until the end of the court proceedings.
However, these cases differed as to whether the doctors in charge, against whom the court proceedings
were conducted, were suspended or not. On one hand, Miladin Šoć has been struggling
before the court for five years, seeking justice for the death of his daughter. As claimed by him, his
daughter was wrongly treated for an apparently benign influenza in the Clinical Centre of Montenegro
and was brought to death at the age of thirty. Šoć emphasizes that now his daughter would be
alive if it had not been for the negligence of doctors,
who prescribed a wrong therapy and then discharged
her from the hospital in a bad condition,
after which she died the next day. Although the doctors
have been in the dock, they still work despite
the fact that an indictment has been charged
against them. On the other hand, the suspension of
the doctors from Bijelo Polje ensued only after the
fathers of the babies began a hunger strike on two
occasions, 13 days in total. The babies were infected
in the maternity hospital and one of them died, unfortunately.
The month of April 2012 remained infamous in “Komanski most” for the death of two beneficiaries
who were not vaccinated against influenza which raged in Montenegro at the time. Despite the fact
that the Public Health Institute publicly invited the citizens to undergo vaccination, this appeal was
not applied to the beneficiaries within “Komanski most.” Although almost four years have passed
since then, no one has yet been held responsible for the death of the beneficiaries.
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