Bosnia Urged to Probe Medics Off Sick in Pandemic

After media reported that about 700 medical workers in Bosnia had taken sick leave lately, 300 at the Sarajevo University Clinical Centre, the biggest hospital in the capital, senior doctors and politicians have called for an investigation.

As many as 101 primary care doctors at the Health Centre, which runs the outpatient clinic throughout Sarajevo, went on sick leave in March at the height of the coronavirus epidemic, according to reports. A total of 148 medical staff took sick leave at the Health Centre in the same period.

Sebija Izetbegovic, director of the Sarajevo University Clinical Centre, warned that the problem is serious and threatened the healthcare system with collapse.

"A total of 305 people [from the centre] are on sick leave, plus about 100 are in isolation - but two-thirds of these are unjustified," Izetbegovic told the media.

"We have always had a problem with false illness. I meet my employees walking around the city, and some of them have prescribed themselves sick leave," she said.

Muhamed Ahmic, director of the Sarajevo Health Centre, said staff who take sick leave without proper justification should face penalties.

"I have ordered doctors to tighten the criteria for granting sick leave. Unjustifiably going on sick leave will be punished," Ahmic said.

Rusmir Mesihovic, the Sarajevo Canton's Health Minister, told the newspaper Dnevni Avaz that his ministry will examine all cases of sick leave involving staff in medical institutions in the canton.

But the Union of Doctors of Medicine and Dentistry of Sarajevo Canton insisted that the announced number of doctors on sick leave was incorrect - and warned that too many doctors and other medical staff were still working without proper...