Report Corruption
“Corruption is a relation based on the abuse of an official or social position or influence, in the public or private sector, aimed at gaining personal benefit or benefit for others”(Article 2 of the Anti-Corruption Agency Act).
As the most frequent corruption forms, a criminal offense of the abuse of an official position and gaining the personal benefit in the health care system, are included:
- Demanding and accepting a bribe from a patient: money, but also any other illegally gained personal benefit
- Delay in health care services provision: an indirect way of influence on a patient to perform a corruptive act, personally or through an intermediary, without medically based reasons for a delay of a health care service
- Referring a patient to a private practice treatment: there is a difference between the reasoned recommendation of doctors to get certain procedures done in other medical institution in order to achieve faster diagnostics and a referral of patients to a specific private practice clinic with a direct violation of patients’ rights to the health care services covered by the health insurance
- Favoriting drugs of certain pharmaceutical companies: if a patient is unable to buy a prescribed medicine an adequate substitute must be prescribed that is also on the positive list of medicines, without insisting on a particular manufacturer.
For the criminal act – corruption in any form, there are legal and disciplinary penalties under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the Code of Professional Ethics of Medical Chamber of Serbia. Criminal liability refers to all participants in the corrupt activities: health care workers, patients, representatives of pharmaceutical companies or intermediaries.
In order to take measures for the protection and a release of liability, it is necessary to report a criminal offense before it is discovered. Any false reporting of corruption is also considered as a criminal offense.
If you notice ethically and professionally unacceptable practices in the work while using the services of the Military Medical Academy there are several ways to report them:
- Department of Military Police Affairs MMA
- Republic Health Care Inspection
- Anti-Corruption Agency
- Defender of Insured Persons Rights at the MMA
- MMA Management
