The Tuzla University Clinical Center (UKC) has been without a radiotherapy machine for a year. Oncology patients are forced to travel to Mostar and Zenica for radiation, which their health condition does not allow for many, and they give up treatment. They are angry and resentful, and trust in the health care system is completely broken, because many have already lost their life battles.
It has been a year since the linear accelerator at UKC Tuzla has stopped working. The news that an appeal was filed against its procurement due to the selected bidder deeply disappointed and saddened the patients. Ivo Josić was forced to go to Zenica for treatment for two months, and only because of tender procedures and the fact that someone in the health system does not want to solve this problem.
IVO JOSIC
“They offered me Zenica. At the same time, there was a change in the accelerator in Sarajevo, some people went to Mostar…. I’m disgusted when I have to talk about it”.
Tuzla is being systematically destroyed.
Journalist Armin Kendić, who has been following the problem of acquiring a linear accelerator from the beginning. He points out that changes to the law on public procurement are very necessary, because precisely because of the current law that makes lengthy appeals procedures difficult, the problem of the linear accelerator has not moved from the deadlock for a year.
ARMIN KENDIĆ, journalist of the portal Klix.ba
“We are now in a situation where, in popular terms, we can go around in the circle we are currently in until exhaustion. So, we have a situation in which two companies, two suppliers applied for a tender. One was chosen and after that filed an appeal. On the other hand, even at this moment in order to acquire a device for the treatment of oncology patients, i.e. for radiotherapy, it will take us 120 days for it to be installed, i.e. for it to be in operation”.
For now, the most responsible ones are not making comments in the Tuzla Canton, namely the TK government institutions under whose jurisdiction is the University Clinical Center. Representative Amra Nadarević told BHRT that convening an emergency session of the TK Assembly would not bring a solution, but the responsibility of those who are blocking the procurement process should be determined and that in judicial institutions.
AMRA NADAREVIĆ, representative in the TK Assembly
“This is obviously a public procurement problem and it should be solved at higher levels. This is not a problem from yesterday. It should be determined who is to blame, how what and why all this is happening and why it is so stagnant”.
Many patients in Tuzla lost their life battles while waiting for the administrative procedures of public procurement. And who knows how long he will have to wait for the linear accelerator after these appeals. It is a reality that depicts the life of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, BHRT writes.
