Jasminka Mijatović, councilor of the Tuzla Municipal Council, asked the councilor's question at the last session of the Municipal Council:
"When will the waiting list/that is, ordering at the Tuzla Health Center be reduced to a reasonable time and when will prevention programs be started in order to protect the health of the residents of Tuzla Municipality?"
Reasoning
As the week before was marked as European Cervical Cancer Day (January 19-25), and as February 4 is marked as International Cancer Day, I consider it reasonable to ask when the implementation of health care access reforms will begin, which will enable, first of all, the provision of prevention, in order to avoid the disease, if possible, and in the case of early diagnosis, to give patients a better chance of recovery (completely or partially). According to my knowledge, women who receive a referral for a Pap test at the Health Center Tuzla cannot have the same findings, unless it is a systematic examination, at the Health Center. They are referred to UKC Tuzla, which is not in dispute, but where it is ordered for examination for a period of up to a year. On the other hand, if you need one of the x-rays at the Health Center (e.g. of the spine), it is now being ordered for the end of March. However, if you are on sick leave for more than 42 days, you are referred to the Commission on the 42nd day, when you have to appear with findings, which you can only imagine, because you are ordered to do the same for a minimum of 60 days. Physicians from this area also participated in the development of the Strategy for Approaches to the Treatment of Malignant Diseases, which is one of the prerequisites that BiH must fulfill if it wants to become a member of the EU.
The goal of the strategy is to reduce the number of patients who come in the terminal phase or in stage III, IV cancer, when they can no longer be treated. I hope that family medicine, where the waiting times are also inappropriately long, and which has been reduced to the mere issuing of referrals and prescriptions, can make a far greater contribution in this regard. Considering the difficult financial situation, even in this sector, I think that prevention and early detection of diseases is a cheaper form of health care".
"HO HORIZONTI" Association, a non-governmental organization that advocates in a humane, open and professional manner for the active participation and better position of women in our society, and "HO ZZIPO" Tuzla Association, a non-governmental organization that, through its health program, advocates for the improvement of women's health, we support the initiative of councilor Jasminka Mijatović and we are looking for an answer as to why citizens of Tuzla have to wait years for a mammogram, months for a CT scan, days for a family doctor. We believe that the Municipality of Tuzla, as the founder of the Tuzla Health Center, should urgently raise this issue and demand from the authorities in the health system a solution to these pressing problems that negatively affect the health of our citizens.
Association "HO HORIZONTI" Tuzla Association "HO ZZIPO" Tuzla