Coronavirus pandemic has brought to surface all problems accumulating for years in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chairman of the Medical Chamber in Bosnia's Federation (FBiH) entity, Harun Drljevic, told N1.

“This shows a complete dysfunctionality of this state. Corona has caused everything that has been accumulating to come to the surface. It all looks quite humorous but this is our reality,” he said.

Drljevic discussed the situation in N1's current affairs show ‘Pressing’ with other two health professionals, Vahid Jusufovic, general manager of Tuzla University Clinical Centre, and doctor Dragan Stevanovic.

They all agreed – the authorities did not respond well, particularly in the controversial case of purchase of ventilators from China, which is a subject of an investigation by state prosecutors. 

“I see a direct political responsibility of the FBiH Government and the Prime Minister,” said Stevanovic, adding that in such situation a government like this should resign.

Stevanovic, who is a member of a commission looking into the process of purchase of Chinese ventilators, said the ones who bought the machines were not aware of what they were doing.

“Some dealt with a job they didn't understand at all. The one who purchased these machines was not aware at all of what he had ordered and what kind of job he got engaged with. It makes me mad that we have a number of companies dealing with the import of medical equipment, which had no chance to do that and some raspberry producers did,” he added.

Nobody consulted experts in the whole process, said Jusufovic. However, too much time is wasted on this affair, he deems.

“You must know that the situation on March 16 was not even close to this one,” said Jusufovic, noting that clinical centres and their managers were under huge pressure and were afraid they would face Italian scenario.

The pandemic is not over, he warned, adding that purchase of medical equipment is likely to resume in autumn this year. “Once we start following the public procurement system, we'll see how long it's going to last. (…) So far we got nowhere, we're going back to ‘who bought the ventilators and who's to blame’? How will we move on?” he concluded.