Legal and Financial Challenges of “Brain-Drain” in Healthcare in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Legal and Financial Challenges of “Brain-Drain” in Healthcare in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author(s): Edina Sudžuka, Azur Pašić
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Udruženje ekonomista i menadžera Balkana
Keywords: Public health; Brain-drain; Nursing professionals and healthcare professionals; Shortage of the health service
Summary/Abstract: The problem of the health workers (technicians and nurses) outflow from Bosnia and Herzegovina and from the other countries of the former Yugoslavia represents a key challenge for the sustainability of health systems. After the collapse of the socialist system, the public healthcare institutions, once supported by strong educational systems serving as the backup of healthcare service delivery, have faced challenges with the introduction of the market economy thus leading to competition with the private sector and a significant outflow of skilled personnel. The freedom of movement of people and work, both within the European Union and globally, additionally encourages migration, thus causing inequality in the availability of health services, both within countries and between them, but also the negative effect of tightening competitive relations, which in the health sector causes undesirable compromises in the quality of providing health services, at the expense of patients. The paper will discuss the possibilities of finding measures to retain medical staff, taking into consideration modalities of combining employment policy with fiscal policy, and policies in the field of public health, or interstate agreements.

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