Due to political turmoil, health workers in Una-Sana Canton (USC) have not yet received their December salary. Patients are not suffering for now, and all eyes are turned on the extraordinary session of the USC Parliament, which is scheduled for today.
They come to work, they have no salaries. With half-hour protests, health workers in the USC have been warning for several days about the situation they found themselves in because of politicians who put their games ahead of their existence. During this time, the queues of patients are getting longer.
Arijana Kurjakovic, a nurse at the Cantonal Hospital in Bihac mentioned: “We’ve earned one salary, and now the second one, and we’re still working with a smile around people who need our help. We haven’t closed the door to the infirmary, the rooms, or told anyone we don’t want to do something. We think we’re being fair.”
The epidemiological situation in USC is worsening. In addition to not having a salary, as well as the increased volume of work, health workers are forced to face other problems.
Hajrudin Halilovic, Assistant Director of the Cantonal Hospital in Bihac stated: “We can’t pay for the oxygen itself, we have consumables. Oxygen monitoring valves are consumables, we have to get it, and we have nowhere to give us that.”
Also, it is important to state that the current state in the health sector is what drives young doctors from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to Western European countries.
Damir Ciric, President of the Medical Chamber of the USC added: “Those with extraordinary experience are leaving. If you have the knowledge and you don’t have the ability to apply it, then a certain frustration is created. Money is no longer important but that a person can truly dedicate oneself to medicine and practice it. A doctor lives to medicine.”
A new attempt to unblock the most important financial document of the USC is scheduled for today. At least 16 representatives need to support temporary funding, which would allow the payment of salaries, at least until March 31st, which is the deadline for adopting the budget.
E.Dz.
Source: BHRT
