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Source: Danas
Date:2.10. 2007.

Belgrade – At the recently held meeting in Media Center, representatives of the Association of Health Service Users – Club “Health” said, referring to the World Bank report, that Serbia was on the fourth place on the list of most corrupted countries in the area of health care. They also said that 45% of the state's population did not undergo medical treatment due to lack of money and that there was a monopoly in health insurance. However, Svetlana Vukajlović, head of the Republic Health Insurance Institute, says that the reports were out-of-date and no longer relevant.
- The World Bank had made that report before reforms in our country began. There is not longer the problem of lacking medicines, sanitation material, etc. There can no longer happen taht people die because they need pacemakers, but do not have enough money to pay for them. We cannot even say that 45% of people in Serbia avoid medical services due to lack of money. Availability of the Serbian health care system is much better for all society levels. It is obvious that rich men in all European countries can achieve something faster than others, and we are no exception in this regard. In Serbia, much more is offered to poor people too, to those that do not have enough money.

People often claim that doctors demand from patients to pay for services that should be covered by their health insurance. Does it mean that corruption in health care is not decreasing?
- It is a fact that patients must pay some services. One thing is to pay compulsory participation fee, which is stipulated by the law. Everybody has to pay it, except people with no incomes. The other thing is what is really going on in the field. We are constantly trying to solve the problem of unofficial collecting fees for medicines, sanitation material or sending patients to private clinics. There are less such cases than in 2003. However, there are some individuals that are ready to manipulate and to collect money unofficially. The trouble is that patients do not want to report such actions in 99% of cases. People talk much about corruption, but we do not have enough direct indicators. Patients often say that somebody from a medical institution asked something from them or took money for a service, but most of them do not want to report the incident officially. Thus we are incapable of reacting. We cannot do anything without direct cooperation between patients and offical institutions in the process of reducting corruption.


Can patients get more information about their rights, medical expenses and services, prices and not to become manipulated?
- We plan to eradicate such practice completely. Situation can be improved by informing patients about their rights, but not just on the global level, but also individually. We are preparing leaflets that would give detailed explanations to patients about what they should pay for and what services are free. They will also be informed about institutions they can reports such incidents to, and about ways to report them and to demand money refund. Thus we will soon introduce booklets in dialysis department, which would clearly state which analysis and medicines the patients is entitled to, in what time period, etc. If a patient is told to pay something, he can refund the amount he paid in the Institute. However, sometimes unjustified applications appear.


According to new regulations, unemployed individuals, who have the right to insurance paid from the budget, must collect many documents in order to prove their status?
– The state passed that law and it has the right to check its insurants. Thus it cannot happen that somebody has a villa in an elite settlement in Belgrade and that the state pays for his health insurance. These regulations are passed by the ministries of labor and health, and we only execute them. Some of our branches managed to make collecting documents easier for their insurants. We will soon have the same practice in all branches. This means that insurants will no longer be instructed to collect documents, but employees in Institute branches will send written demands to tax administration offices, which will afterwards submit demanded documents to our branches in a few days. It is much simpler this way. The other new thing we introduced is that we extended the time of health card validity. Now we verify them once a year.