For 15 months, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Canton Sarajevo (CS) has not completed the investigation based on the criminal complaints of the families, who accuse the Sarajevo University Clinical Center (KCUS) of negligence in the treatment of COVID-19.
A criminal complaint was filed with the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office in June 2021 by the families of Atif Hota and Sead Palic, who died at the beginning of March of the same year in the KCUS.
These families hold that medical institution responsible for “gross errors and omissions in treatment”. The director of KCUS, Sebija Izetbegovic, and a dozen doctors, medical technicians and administrative workers are being charged with criminal charges.
The Prosecutor’s Office of CS claims that they are taking certain measures, but that they cannot talk about the details due to the “protection of the case”.
Mirsad Hota, the brother of the deceased Atif, noted that at the beginning of the spring of this year, he gave a statement to the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office and that since then there has been no information.
Mirsad’s brother was admitted to the Infectious Diseases Clinic of KCUS on February 24th, 2021, where he was referred for suspected corona virus infection.
The next day, as he points out, it was determined by PCR testing that he was not infected. He died on March 4th in the respiratory center of the KCUS.
Mirsad claims that his brother had negative test result for the corona virus, but that he was treated as if he was infected.
Mirela Palic also filed a criminal complaint against the staff of the KCUS in June 2021.
She believes that there was negligence in the treatment of her husband Sead, who was connected to a ventilator in KCUS, where he died as a result of COVID-19.
Why aren’t autopsies being done?
Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, more than 16.000 people have died in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) with confirmed corona virus infection, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH.
The families of the deceased have often publicly warned that they have not been able to perform an autopsy that would allow the exact cause of death to be determined.
The corona virus pandemic in BiH was also marked by several scandals in the procurement of medical equipment.
Due to the procurement of 100 respirators from China in the FBiH (FBiH), proceedings are being conducted before the Court of BiH against several high-ranking officials in that entity, among which there is also t the Entity Prime Minister Fadil Novalic.
Besides Novalic, the suspended director of the Federal Administration of Civil Protection Fahrudin Solak, the Minister of Finance of the FBiH Jelka Milicevic and the owner of the company “Srebrena malina” Fikret Hodzic were also indicted, Radio Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
