112 children receive medical treatment abroad

112 children receive medical treatment abroad

In 2017, the Fund had on its disposal RSD 261,402,000 for the costs of medical treatment for 39 patients and for the costs of genetic and metabolic tests and researches, analyses of 76 samples in international health institutions, as well as for bringing foreign experts on four occasions, during which five procedures were performed, while total amount of RSD 206,005,114.80 were spent.

In the health commissions, more than 50 best experts from this medical field were engaged.

The biggest number of patients, 22 of them, were suffering from severe neurological and neurosurgical conditions, cerebral palsy or serious diseases of the blood vessels of the brain, 4 patients were suffering from hemato oncological diseases, 3 patients with heart conditions, 2 patients with the locomotor system, 2 organ transplants, vascular anomalies, facial deformities, and eye diseases with prematurely born babies.

Three requests for medical treatment were refused as those diseases could have been treated in local health institutions, or it was experimental aspects of healing, as well as 46 requests for genetic tests, as those could also been done in Serbian health institutions. Supervisory board had concluded that Fund’s financial means were dealt with in the most appropriate and most rational way, from the selection of reference institutions, to taking care of all necessary costs.

Wherever it was possible, our experts had attended medical procedures of their patients, accompanying them while being subjected to treatments in the institutions abroad, so that they could later follow up on their recovery, and in order to gain new experience and skills. The evaluations of treatment results are being done on a regular basis, so in the long and short term, it is concluded that the activities of Fund completely justified its establishment and that in most cases, treatment abroad had positively affected patients’ overall conditions. Only two fatal cases were registered (lung transplant and leukemia).

Supervisory Board had recommended to the Ministry of health the proposal that deals with expanding the definition for approving medical treatment abroad, to include “diseases which treatment in our local health institutions gives far worse results compared to treatment abroad”, as well as establishing the list of priority health institutions with which successful cooperation was established, with the goal of more efficient procedure of receiving treatment and future regular medical check-ups of the patients.

Supervisory board had especially underlined the necessity that all physicians should inform the parents and patients about the existence of this fund and the possibility of being treated abroad, if it is not possible to do in accordance with the instructions of the Republic Fund of Health Insurance. Moreover, it encouraged parents to get informed on the ways in which it is possible to accomplish those rights to children being treated via this particular Fund.

Since its establishment, the Fund had provided medical treatment abroad for 112 patients, as well as sent total amount of 223 samples for genetic and metabolic analyses.

In 2018 alone, 26 patients were granted treatment abroad, while 48 samples were sent for future genetic and metabolic researches, for which purposes total amount of RSD 157,176,284.24 was spent.

Currently, Budgetary Fund’s bank account holds funds in the amount of RSD 105,739,506.

In case those funds are spent till the end of the budgetary period, new funds will be requested for approval from the budgetary savings. Not a single patient will be left without the possibility of being treated in case the funds expired prior to the year end.

Members of the Supervisory board of the Budget Fund are: Veran Matic, Chairman of the board, Natasa Damnjanovic, Dejan Pantelic, Sandra Pavlovic, Dr Radoje Simic, Dr Radan Dzodic and dr Sinisa Ducic.