Transparency International (TI) in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has asked the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of BiH and entity health inspectorates to launch inspections of five suppliers who have been supplying medical oxygen to public health facilities in the previous period, as the TI said.
According to the statement, this association received an official confirmation from the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of BiH that five out of a total of six companies that have concluded contracts with public health institutions through public procurement in the past do not have a marketing authorization for medicines.
These are the companies: TGT TEHNOGAS, ISTRABENZ PLINI d.o.o Breza, KRAS d.o.o Laktasi, TEHNOGAS Kakmuz, and Milojevic Gilje Gas.
The mentioned companies have been supplying oxygen to numerous health care institutions in the past period without a license to trade in medicines. According to the data available to TI, among those institutions, there are the Clinical Center of Republika Srpska (RS), hospitals in Gradiska, Nevesinje, Sanski Most, Doboj, Zenica, Bijeljina, Trebinje, Prijedor, as well as many institutes and health centers.
TI pointed out this problem back in June this year when they asked the Agency to start an inspection of the company that supplied the hospital in Trebinje and was not in the public register.
It is important to mention that only on Thursday TI received an official letter from the Agency, which previously appeared in the media, that the inspection determined that the technical gas was used for medical purposes, which endangered the health of patients.
Therefore, it is especially worrying that the authorities ignored the warnings of the inspectors, and the reaction followed only after public pressure, but also the politicization of that whole case.
