Iryna Zhyhar: Organizations of patients could combat corruption in medicine

How to distinguish between corruption and sincere gratitude in medicine? Organizations of patients might sort out this issue.

This opinion shared to the EuroBelarus Information Service the chairperson of the Republican Public Association "Belorussian Organization of Working Women" (BOWW) Iryna Zhyhar.

The day before Minsk Attorney Siarhei Hmaruk stated that Minsk medical sphere is a leader in corruption level, mainly at the expense of small bribes for fake sick-leave certificates.

Noting the necessity of reducing bribery risks in the corruption sphere, Siarhei Hmaruk said: “In the hospitals we often see patients with papers where the name of this or that medicine is written. It turns out that physicians, when suggesting the medicine, perform the order of pharmaceutical company by advertising this medicine. And this is already corruption”.

The attorney believes that the public health service itself should eliminate the conditions and preconditions for commission of such crimes of bribery.

But Iryna Zhyhar noted that she wouldn’t make immediate judgments whether issuing sick leaves and small presents is corruption or not. According to her words, these are two different things – when a patient gives you a present sincerely and when he is forced to do that.

- It is actually a problem – how to distinguish corruption from the display of sincere gratitude, - says the chairperson of BOWW. – As a patient I more than once had such situation when I couldn’t leave the nurse without gratitude. She nurses you not because she expects something from you, but because she does her work well. And I couldn’t but treat her to some fruits or a chocolate with all my heart. And some other nurse will help you only if you treat her to something, i.e. instead of performing her duties she makes use of her official position fraudulently.

Facts of bribery should be constantly rechecked and examined – what the patients received less and what they needed to bribe for. All this is a topic for public discussion, assumes Iryna Zhyhar, as, she believes that “there is no mechanism of how to define corruption criteria, and research methodology in this sphere is doubtful”.

Low salaries of medical staff can be one of the factors for bribery, too. One can often hear from nurses in hospitals that you’d better be happy that we turn up for work at all for such money. And this is the problem of attitude towards work. Low salaries are provocation for the professional worker. By low salaries people justify their habitual negligence of work.

The emergence of some public force that could be an expert in this topic, answer “what-to-do” questions, talk about bribery and suggest ways of its eradication could promote solution of problems. It is the patients themselves who should be interested in fighting corruption in the medical institutions. But for now there are no patient organizations in Belarus.

- Each Western country has organization of patients. It is this force that tracks what happens and normalizes these relations to avoid clandestine dealings in the medical sphere, - says Iryna Zhyhar. – The system itself cannot cope with that. The patients want someone to decide for them for free. But they cannot correct the situation with corruption without having their say.