Foot intervention gone wrong

Anđela Ikodinović found the practice “Beomedicus” on the Internet. When she went for the first examination, the doctor told her that she would remove the thickenings from both feet with a laser, that the procedure was routine, painless, so anesthesia was not needed, and the recovery time was a week.

When she went to her appointment, she was met by a beautician who said that instead of using a laser, he would remove the thickenings with a device used to remove wartsa. She says that it hurt a lot and that she only received anesthesia at her own insistence. And the therapy was applying cream.

During the first dressing at home, Angela saw a bone on her right foot and immediately called “Beomedicus”.

– The man who performed the intervention claimed that it was not a bone, but that it was the formation of young skin, where they told me that I should not worry and that the wound would heal by itself and disappear with the prescribed therapy, which is was in the form of that cream – says Anđela Ikodinović.

From the Clinical Center of Serbia, Anđela is urgently sent to the Institute of Orthopedics in Banjica.

“Alone the surgery at Banjica ended with a muscle transplant of the little finger and a skin transplant from the left hand. I was immobile for a considerable period, after which I moved with the help of aids, i.e. crutches,” adds Anđela.

They face a prison sentence of up to eight years

After the lawyer filed a criminal complaint with the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office, the general practitioner and the beautician of “Beomedicus” were arrested and ordered to be detained for up to 30 days.

“For the specific criminal offense, a prison sentence of one to eight years is prescribed. Given that the injured party was seriously injured, one of the suspects is a person with a high school diploma, who stated that his occupation is a beautician. Of course, the check such certificates, his diploma will be determined later,” emphasizes Branka Gajić, PR of the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade.

The Prosecutor’s Office, he adds, has already ordered an extraordinary supervision of the said surgery, as well as all other necessary documentation, both medical and professional qualifications of the person who performed the intervention.

Unfortunately, what happened to Angela is not an isolated case. Cases like Angela’s are becoming more and more common in the invasion of surgeries where non-professionals or people without appropriate qualifications work. At the beginning of March, a woman with a fake diploma from the Faculty of Dentistry was arrested, who ran an office in an elite part of the city where she performed skin rejuvenation treatments. Before that, a mother and son were arrested for a similar procedure. All are still in custody.

Treatment of the consequences is not the solution, prevention is needed, and this means that the inspectors of the Ministry of Health must go to the field to check who works in surgeries and clinics that are advertised on social networks and the Internet.

Necessary unannounced controls

The Minister of Health, Danica Grujičić, says that it is necessary to carry out unannounced controls, in order to see the true picture of who and how works both in the private and state sectors. The head of the Department of Health Inspection of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Vladan Jakovljević, adds that we must distinguish between regular and extraordinary inspections.

“Extraordinary inspections deal exclusively with the reason for the application, that is, citizens’ petitions, while in the case of regular inspections, we carry out a complete control of a certain private practice or health institution”, says Jakovljević.

When it comes to the practice “Beomedicus”, he notes that an inspection was attempted, but that they encountered a locked door.

“The acting health inspectors found the door locked and a notification that as of 4/22, the practice has temporarily stopped working, according to the decision of the Agency for Business Registers”, says Jakovljević.

When asked what the next steps are, he says that in this particular case, the MUP and the Prosecutor’s Office are continuing their work so that those responsible are punished.

Answering the question whether it is logical for the Ministry of Internal Affairs to obtain such data before the health inspection, Jakovljević says that they are obliged to check that when establishing a private practice and health institution, it has the appropriate conditions in terms of space, equipment and staff.

“What happens after the start of work and obtaining a solution, we can only find out in periodic regular inspections. “Regular inspections at this moment depend primarily on the available time of health inspectors and are directly dependent on the number of petitions from citizens, as well as the number of requests to determine the conditions for starting work”, says Jakovljević.

Unprofessional staff is also often a problem. However, Jakovljević emphasizes that this control is not in the domain of the health inspection.

“We do not issue licenses, we do not control whether a license is valid or fake. Therefore, we do not collect documentation regarding forgery, other state bodies are in charge of that, in this case chambers, the National Employment Service and the like. So, it is the chamber that issues a license to someone. The health inspectorate can only ask to see the original of that license, but the health inspector is not an expert when he assesses whether something is a forgery or not,” concluded Jakovljević.

(RTS)