During this year, at least seven Turkish doctors gave patients consultations without permits, for which the Chamber of Doctors, the Ministry, and the inspectorate say they need to have.
Doctor Tolga Aksan gave advice to patients in Sarajevo in November of this year. The services of this plastic surgeon specializing in beauty and health were advertised by the “Hera Healthcare” agency. He talked with the patients about aesthetic and plastic surgery, advised them if any aesthetic correction, surgery or other procedure was needed, according to the agency’s posts on social networks.
This health tourism agency from Turkey has been operating inBosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) since 2022 and, according to its website, “provides intuitive, customized healthcare solutions.”
They bring doctors like Aksan from Turkey to BiH for a few days or weeks to give advice to patients. But it is revealed that neither Tolga nor the six other doctors brought in by this agency had the necessary permits to work with patients.
The “Hera Healthcare” agency claims that medical licenses are not required for the services they provide because they do not provide any therapy to patients. They organized free consultations with at least three other doctors in Sarajevo and Zenica, from February to the beginning of November 2023.
This and other agencies that are established in BiH by well-known Turkish hospitals bring Turkish doctors to the countries where they have their offices and provide free consulting services to patients who would like an additional opinion on a certain health problem. According to the data collected, they did not ask for permission from medical chambers for this work.
The Chamber of Doctors of Canton Sarajevo (CS), under whose authority are all doctors who provide their services in any way in the area of this canton, told that for such services all foreign doctors would have to have appropriate licenses. They confirmed that the doctors of the Hera Healthcare agency did not ask for such permits.
The same rules are confirmed by the Ministry of Health of CS, from which they clarified that foreign doctors can independently perform medical activities in the Federation in accordance with the regulations on the employment, movement and stay of foreigners, as well as on health care. For the purposes of such activities, foreign doctors are required to fulfill some general requirements, among which is the possession of a medical license, and to know the official language that is in use on the territory of this entity. For doctors who do not come from the European Union (EU) or countries that have the Bologna system of education, an additional requirement is passing a professional exam.
Dr. Dragan Stevanovic, a retired physician and long-term president of the Chamber in CS, also has this opinion, who states that all doctors, especially foreigners, are required to obtain an appropriate license to work with patients.
“Every contact of any doctor, wherever he comes from – from the Federation, from Republika Srpska (RS), from abroad, and contacts with the patient, and in order to protect the patient to actually talk to the appropriate expert who is qualified for it, requires a license from the competent medical chamber”, explained Stevanovic, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
