Photo: Tanjug / Dušan Aničić"On the contrary, it often happens to us that people work seriously ill because they are not allowed to go on sick leave. Or someone might think that there is abuse of sick leave in the notorious Korean Jura," says the president of the Association of Patients of Serbia, Savo Pilipović.
Health Minister Danica Grujicic announced on Sunday that patients in Serbia will be able to receive sick leave from a general practitioner for two weeks only, and that he will then have to go to the commission.
"We wrote a simple rule, except for oncology patients, newly operated and pregnant women, that the general practitioner will be able to give only two weeks. All others will have to go to the commission. Grujicic said. Speaking about the amendments to the Law on Health Insurance, Minister Danica Grujičić told RTS that the major complaints of the economy are that some workers are absent from work for up to two months, especially during the summer.
That decision of the ministry angered many citizens on social networks, and some are simply desperate because of the already complicated bureaucracy in healthcare and their own health condition, as well as that of their loved ones. Some write that many people do not take sick leave at all, and work when they are sick so that their wages will not be deducted, in some cases even to keep their jobs.
Savo Pilipović, president of the Association of Patients of Serbia, says that this decision, although they support the work of the Minister of Health and that they have very good communication with her and her associates, is meaningless.
"This decision reminds me of the decision not to schedule examinations from the first to the fifth, but throughout the month." It sounds good, but in essence it is completely meaningless. Just as we did not gain anything by changing the appointment of specialist examinations, nothing will change with this latest decision either," says Pilipović for the "Vremena" portal.
Let me say right away, two groups of the most difficult patients are exempted, cardiovascular patients recovering from operations and oncology patients. However, I heard that the rationale for making such a decision was that the "business" complained about the misuse of sick leave.
"It should be said that there is no abuse of sick leave at private employers, on the contrary, it often happens to us that people work seriously ill because they are not allowed to go on sick leave." Or someone might think that in the notorious there is abuse of sick leave to korean jura?
On the other hand, it is an open secret that in the public sector, which we all pay for, there is a huge number of party sinecures who do nothing and receive a salary. I'm interested in whether the "business" complained about it. Furthermore, we know very well that in healthcare we have, for years, a large number of non-medical workers who are redundant and do nothing, and a chronic shortage of healthcare workers, both doctors and nurses and everyone else," continues Pilipović.
He also says that "we have much bigger problems in the health system: we are the last in Europe in terms of allocation for medicines, transplantation exists only in traces, doctors in primary health care have been reduced to scribes, corruption is literally legalized, the relationship between the state and private healthcare..."
Pilipović says that it is very important to say that Dr. Danica Grujičić and Dr. Sanja Radojević Škodrić, director of the RFZO, understand the problems of patients and would like to do more, but it is the decision of the state leadership to invest the money in other areas.
"I think that it would be much more important than such decisions to find a way to explain to President Aleksandar Vučić and Prime Minister Ana Brnabić how important investment in healthcare is, as well as to ask His Holiness, Patriarch Porfirio, for the church to contribute to organ transplantation, such as it happened in Croatia."
For the benefit of patients, the best thing would be for the whole society to change, and for us to be a society of social justice, and not a society of huge inequalities, to be a legal state and not a bandit state, and for us all to be much more honest. I know it's not realistic. In this kind of society, those who abuse sick leave will always find a way to do it, even if they have to go to the commission after two days. Honest patients have the biggest problem with those commissions, because doctors who play policemen sit on the commissions.
"If President Vučić called me at this moment, and I know he won't, and asked what we would like to see changed in healthcare, I would immediately suggest more money for innovative therapies, a state campaign for organ transplantation, a dialogue of all relevant factors for primary health care reform, including doctors who work in primary health care, the beginning of a serious dialogue with the private sector, much more serious support for Minister Grujičić and her team, but above all to understand that investing in health care is not an expense but an investment in the future of this society", concludes Pilipović.
The United Sloga Trade Unions condemned the announcement of the changes
The United Trade Unions of Sloga condemned on Monday the announcement by the Minister of Health, Danica Grujičić, about the proposal to amend the Law on Health Insurance, writes Fonet.
Such a change amortizes the catastrophic state of health care, which is on the verge of collapse. The lack of doctors, nurses, technical and medical personnel, as well as technical capacities, makes such a decision not only reckless, but also potentially dangerous, according to Sloga.
He assesses that, at a time when investment in the health care system is urgently needed and when a strategy for long-term problem solving is sought, laws are instead passed in favor of employers, and to the detriment of patients and health care workers.
Such a change seems like an attempt to discourage the sick from seeking treatment and going on sick leave, instead of providing support and enabling adequate care, Sloga states.
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