Health Minister Milan Kujundzic said in an interview with the Vecernji List daily that he will ask for three opposition MPs who are professional physicians to be stripped of their medical licenses after they called for his resignation following an incident in which a young man died while waiting for an ambulance in the town of Zapresic.
The three MPs are Zeljko Jovanovic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Ines Strenja-Linic and Bozo Petrov of the populist Most party.
“The three doctors – Jovanovic, Strenja-Linic, and Petrov – used the young man’s death and his family’s tragedy to score political points, revealing their utter medical incompetence… without waiting for the findings of an inspection or an autopsy report, they made premature conclusions, and in fact smeared the reputation of Croatian doctors and nurses, and caused public alarm. That has caused huge damage to the Croatian people, and I will therefore ask they they be stripped of their medical licences for good. I will also consult with lawyers to see if criminal prosecution against them is possible,” said Kujundzic commenting on the case.
The death of 21-year-old Matteo Ruzic, who died in the street in Zapresic, just west of Zagreb, on August 12 while waiting for an ambulance had caused a public outcry, and drew harsh criticism from opposition parties asking for Kujundzic to resign.
Strenja-Linic – a neurologist – asked Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to dismiss Kujundzic, while her party colleague Petrov – a psychiatrist – presented a document listing 50 reasons why Kujundzic should step down. Kujundzic responding by telling a news conference that Strenja-Linic and Petrov’s credibility in medicine equalled his in farming, a comment which caused Social Democrat Jovanovic – himself a physician – to report Kujundzic for insulting the two MPs to the Croatian Medical Chamber.
Following Kujundzic’s statement that he would ask for all three MPs to be banned from practising medicine, Jovanovic said that Kujundzic had violated the Code of Medical Ethics and Deontology.
“And now he has even dared to threaten us with withdrawing our licences for pointing out his incompetence and arrogance. I expect a vocal response from all doctors because Minister Kujundzic has evidently lost all sense of reality and can no longer be Health Minister,” Jovanovic wrote said on Facebook.
VEZANE VIJESTI
The Croatian Medical Chamber (HLK) on Tuesday confirmed receiving Jovanovic’s request for proceedings against Kujundzic, saying that a decision on the request was pending.
Presenting an autopsy report on Ruzic’s death on Monday, Kujundzic said that the cause of the young man’s death was asthmatic bronchitis and an undiagnosed heart defect.
“There are no sudden deaths caused by asthma, notably in young people, and some other underlying disease, most often a heart condition, is usually the cause, which unfortunately is what happened to Matteo Ruzic,” said Kujundzic.
The emergency medical service system did not fail in this case nor was there any fault in the procedure, he added.
Asked about his responsibility as minister, Kujundzic said that as a man of morals currently responsible for the health system, he has been saying from day one that he would resign over the case if investigation established that the system had failed.
“Now we have confirmation that the system functioned, and secondly, it has been established that sudden death occurred,” Kujundzic added, dismissing calls for his resignation.
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