Depoliticization of healthcare a dead letter?

Even though most of the health centers and hospitals are managed by party personnel, the new Draft Law on Health Care stipulates that members of political party bodies cannot be appointed as directors of public health institutions.

Nevertheless, the Union of Medical Doctors believes that politics continues to contaminate every pore of society, including healthcare, while practice shows that restrictions on the influence of politics are introduced only on paper.

"How much the threshold of tolerance for partitocracy has increased, a very illustrative example is the recent appointment of a communal inspector, without work experience in healthcare, to the position of director of the Health Center in Herceg Novi. A respected doctor was previously removed from that position. As a negative example, I would cite the dismissal of the director of the Rožaje Health Center, who, despite the achieved results, did not pass the test of politics," said the president of the union. Milena Popović Samardžić.

She assessed that all this suggests that the creators of the Draft Law on Health Care are not sincere in their intention to objectify and professionalize the work of health institutions.

"The reforms we are witnessing are just make-up and this attitude towards healthcare does not represent a discontinuity of what we had in the previous period," she said.

Directors of hospitals and health centers have been chosen from among the ruling parties for decades. Formally, the directors of the Clinical Center and the Institute for Public Health are appointed by the Government, on the proposal of the Minister of Health. Directors of other health institutions are appointed by the minister, based on a public competition, which should have contributed to the professionalization of management staff.

"Vijesti" seven years ago, comparing the lists of names of directors and party bodies, announced that councilors of the then ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), members of municipal committees and former deputies of that party made up the majority among the managers of health institutions. A huge number of directors of health institutions in Montenegro were members of DPS, three institutions were headed by members of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), while at that moment only one director, of the Danilovgrad Health Center, was not officially a member of party bodies or the party. ...

While they were in the opposition, the political parties that formed the Government after the elections on August 30, 2020, advocated the depoliticization of public administration and institutions.

The same problem was warned by the European Commission in the reports on the progress of Montenegro, which also stated last year that a strong political will is needed to effectively depoliticize the public service.

Among other things, in the 2019 program, Democratic Montenegro insisted on the depoliticization of healthcare, "as a prerequisite for creating professional and competent staff in the management of public institutions."

The Black and White coalition, which consists of GP URA and Citizens' Alliance CIVIS, on the eve of the parliamentary elections in 2020, said that the depoliticization of healthcare is the first thing they would do in that area after coming to power.

Last year, "Vijesti" announced that 42 people who were officially in the ruling political parties were appointed as directors of health institutions within one year of the mandate of the 15nd Government. Of the six then newly elected directors of general hospitals, four officially come from parties, and two of them are officials of the Socialist People's Party (SNP).

The former Minister of Health hinted that the management of health institutions will continue to be almost completely covered by the party, as was the case during the three-decade rule of the DPS and coalition partners. Jelena Borovinić Bojović upon coming to office. She said back in December 2020 that a certain number of positions in health care would belong to political subjects and that this was agreed upon at a meeting of political clubs and the then prime minister Zdravka Krivokapića.

Current Minister of Health Dragoslav Šcekić (SNP) in the previous period dismissed several directors of health centers and hospitals. Among them are mostly managers close to the Democrats, such as the former director of the hospital in Nikšić Marko Mitrovic, who is also the president of the Municipal Board of that party. On the occasion of his dismissal, as well as the dismissal of the director of the Health Center in Beran Juliane Zecevic, the Democrats reacted this summer, claiming that it was a primitive blow to the common sense of every citizen of Montenegro.

Šćekić recently dismissed the director of the Danilovgrad Health Center Todor Tomasevic and appointed in his place Anu Tomašević Perović. The Ministry of Health announced that Tomašević was dismissed due to omissions identified by the Quality Control Commission.

Tomašević, who on the eve of the local elections in Nikšić officially supported the "Peace is our nation" coalition, assessed that the reasons for his dismissal were purely political in nature.

However, the biggest public attention last week was caused by Šćekić's decision to dismiss the director of the Herceg Novi Health Center Goran Komar and appointed in his place Aleks Đekić, an officer of the Novi Communal Police. The Ministry of Health claimed that Komar did not comply with the regulations, which was allegedly also established by the commission, and that patients complained about his work.

Komar previously appeared in public in front of the group of citizens "Novi Pobejeđaje", which performed with the Democrats, Demos and the Party of the Disabled, Pensioners and Restitution in the local elections in 2021. After Šćekić dismissed him from his position, he said that he was dismissed for party reasons, and that he was replaced by the SNP, to which the minister belongs.