MEDICINE FOR REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS AT THE EDGE OF EU AND THE PROTECTORATE OF BiH: SUSPENSION, BAN AND PLAYACT
A while ago, I met in Bira camp for migrants in Bihac, a refugee with severe chronic disease: osteomyelitis (inflammation of the bones). The consequences of such inflammation may be lost whole limb. The official response during his visit to the humanitarian doctor in the camp (because of the pain) was one tablet of paracetamol. Again, I recently met the case of a migrant with a worsening chronic skin disease of very drastic appearance (psoriasis), again from the official humanitarian doctor in the camp he got one tablet of paracetamol for the treatment of psoriasis . Or still a current case of a patient from Kladuša who has been sent to diagnostic procedure by two local doctors and he is waiting for humanitarian transport to Bihać for more than two months, although the responsible actors on the daily basis were invited and called, and the money has been collected for the diagnostic procedure to be paid. Yes, but they will not / do not want to transport the patient ... These and similar cases are not an exception but practice with different humanitarian medical organizations. It is not simply that the FBiH law that allows refugees and migrants to access the local health system is suspended (in undemocratic way), it is not even a matter of denying access to primary healthcare for refugees and migrants with the advent of humanitarian organizations (although the UN agencies falsely report that refugees and migrants in BiH have access to primary health care), but it is actually the question that leaves us breathless because humanitarian medical assistance is only a play. Indeed, it is so reduced, doctors are so degraded that we can freely say that it is a "fake news" and not a medical help. The money spent on the organization and salaries of staff serves are only a lavish show and in no way help migrants.
I started work with refugees and migrants in 2015 and stayed in it for the fifth calendar year, but the situation I see is still not experienced. The standard of medical assistance to refugees and migrants has eroded so much that it turned into a lie. I have to say that I have never seen fake medical help at work until now, and I am shocked to the extent that panic attacks are almost confronted. Is that possible at all? It is known to me that at the time of the rule of apartheid in the South African Republic, the so-called "apartheid-adapted medicine" ("one medicine for whites, the other for black people") was the so-called "dual loyalty" obligation for doctors, and such medicine could be seen in the 19th century in colonies . However, I could not imagine that in the 21st century I would look at something like that in Europe, in the Balkans, in my home, therefore. And what does a doctor do if he or she is offered a job in fake medical care? To take the money, act and stay silent? Or to retreat into renegades? Is there any third option?
Dimitar Anakiev, dr. med
Photography by Boštjan Videmšek
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