The proposed 2026 healthcare budget is underestimated and again projected to address the problems in the last quarter, with spending expected to be no less than 530 million euros. As a result, patients will continue to face the same problems of long waiting lists and out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
This was assessed by an economist for "Vijesti". Sead Čirgić, former director of the Health Insurance Fund (FZO).
He said that for the analysis of the proposed health budget through the Budget Bill for 2026, we should first start from the actually needed funds for the health system for the current year 2025, increased by the annual growth in health spending.
The government intends to allocate around 487,1 million euros for healthcare next year.
"What we cannot know at this moment is how much the actual spending of the healthcare system will be in the current year, which is obtained by adding up the budget execution and the amount of outstanding liabilities at the end of the year, provided that the stock level is the same at the end of 2025 and 2024. However, if we know that the annual growth in healthcare spending in the past few years is 10 percent, which is a growth that no economy in the world can sustain because every year healthcare costs would cover another 0,6 percent of GDP, we will assume that the healthcare system's needs this year will be between 490 and 500 million euros," Čirgić explained.
This, according to him, means that the proposed healthcare budget for next year of 487 million euros is not even at the level of this year's spending.
"I expect that the annual trend of 10 percent cost growth will decrease next year, as the effects of the populist programs Europe Now 1 and 2, through artificially increased spending, have worn off, but I still estimate that the annual cost growth will not be less than six percent," Čirgić emphasized.
He said that the proposed budget can be seen to be almost the same in all positions, except for dental health care, where it is higher by around 900.000 euros.
"So, if we take into account that the budget for medicines is equal to this year's because it is equal to the 2025 plan, plus the Government's guarantee for procurement of over 30 million euros, only dentistry received a larger budget," said Čirgić.
He believes that the increase in funding for dentistry shows the extent of political influence in the healthcare system.
"I would like to remind you that this year we had a strike by dentists and a refusal to sign contracts between dental clinics and the Health Insurance Fund, because the amount of funds intended for dental health care was greatly underestimated, even reduced compared to the previous year, which jeopardized the work of the dental service, and thus the quality of the services it provides. I believe that the amount for dentistry should have been increased even further because even with this increase, the growth in costs at the primary level of health care is not being followed. Why political influence is visible in this example is clear if we know that this increase is not due to the fact that the problems and consequences of the wrong policy were understood, but because the head of the Health Insurance Fund is a dentist," said Čirgić.
He claims that it is clear that "the government is struggling the most with the consumption of medicines and that it has no solution for the consumption that it does not control."
The solution, he claims, is to provide hospitals with a system for monitoring spending as at the primary level through digitalization. He believes that there are prerequisites for this and electronic monitoring of spending can be introduced without major investments.
"An electronic system that will track who suggested therapy, who prescribed the medications, and who received them. This would enable monitoring of consumption and stock levels in real time. Ideally, it would also provide for tracking of each box of medication from entry to exit by barcode, which would ensure that not a single tablet could be wasted without electronic records. I am sure that this would enable multi-million-dollar savings," said Čirgić.
He believes that the Ministry of Health, instead of forming the Agency for the Digitalization of the Health System, which is planned, should form a special body that would deal exclusively with the consumption of medicines.
It is interesting, he claims, that, despite the announcements from the Ministry of Health about the creation of a parallel IT infrastructure to digitize the already digitized system, we cannot see through the capital budget how much this will cost the citizens of Montenegro, and in addition, the question arises as to why, within the existing system, greater functionality cannot be provided.
Čirgić also concluded that the healthcare system should not face much greater problems next year compared to this year, because the Government will receive the possibility of borrowing 3,1 billion euros through the Budget Law, which will be used as an option if necessary, and in addition, it is counting on the support of the European Union, which has decided to be part of the alliance.
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