By Georgi Mitev Shantek for Southeast European Times in Belgrade -- 10/10/11
One high-level corruption case involved the H1N1 flu vaccine. [Reuters]
The extent of corruption in Serbia's state healthcare system is enormous, and Brussels is pressuring the country to reduce it. Authorities are making a concerted effort to demonstrate that they intend to deal with it.
Health Minister Zoran Stankovic acknowledges "reports of corruption … are more frequent than ever before, totalling 1,500 since January alone." A group of policemen is being assigned solely to root out corruption in healthcare.
Routinely, members of the public pay several hundred euros of "incentive money" in order to have surgery scheduled in a state hospital or to give birth with epidural anaesthesia. But the stakes can be far higher.
One high profile case allegedly involves abuse in the procurement of vaccines for the H1N1 swine flu pandemic dating back to 2009.
International hysteria was exploited in the ordering of three million vaccines in a suspicious tender procedure, involving a procurement agent. Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline offered a direct sale to the government, but the government ignored the offer and purchased the vaccine from Novartis, paying a price 30% higher than in neighbouring Croatia.
Estimates of the amount the state budget was defrauded range between 1.25m to 10.5m euros.
Arrests include the former head of the Republic Institute for Health Insurance and the representative of the company through which the vaccines were imported, owned at the time by Serbian tycoon Milorad Miskovic. But then-Health Minister Tomica Milosavljević, who had to approve both the tender and the import of vaccines, has not been arrested.
"The fact that a high government official has been arrested, while the police merely had a friendly chat with the minister, indicates that there is no serious intention to put an end to corruption. This press conference by the current minister is merely a verbal declaration and an attempt to delude the EU," Dr Drasko Karadjinovic, co-ordinator of the NGO Doctors Against Corruption, told SETimes.
The vaccines case is a clear instance of private profiteering from government procurement. But corruption can also jeopardise lives.
For example, at the Oncology and Radiology Institute in Belgrade, management purchased and doctors allegedly administered unnecessarily high doses of cytostatics to cancer patients. This case is in the courts.
Colleagues at the Oncology Institute of Vojvodina allegedly struck an illegal contract with a foreign insurance company, resulting in policy holders receiving priority status, while state health insurance policy holders languished on waiting lists. The case, dating back to 2009, remains in the prosecutor's office.
"This is absolutely horrible, as the lives of patients suffering from malignant illnesses depend on the scheduling of their treatment," Karađinović noted.
Corruption in Serbia has even more macabre manifestations. In 2006, a funeral home in Belgrade allegedly struck a tacit agreement with employees in the Belgrade Emergency Ward, who essentially offered them leads on dying patients. The prosecutor's job is to establish whether, under the circumstances, medical staff carried out all necessary life-saving procedures.
Karadinovic noted that the health ministry has been run by people from a single political party, in Serbia's case by Mladjan Dinkic's G17 Plus, for the past nine years, within various coalition governments. In that period, Karadinovic says, 15 billion euros passed through the ministry's coffers, a very large and attractive piece of the pie.
"We have a system and laws that are designed for corruption ... as long as healthcare remains a piggybank for financing political parties, change will never happen," said Karadinovic.
Danilo Sukovic, member of the Anti Corruption Council, believes that this sudden activity in combating corruption is more a reflection of EU pressure.
"Political hurdles for EU membership, such as co-operation with The Hague tribunal or resolving the Kosovo issue, are slowly being met, and now corruption is advancing to the top of the agenda," he told SETimes.
"Europe is aware of our situation and is demanding concrete results, as it does not wish to repeat the bad experience of corruption encountered in Bulgaria and Romania."
Source: SETimes.com
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