Sentenced Doctor Fired

Fourteen months after she was declared guilty of causing the death of a patient, Dr. Amila Cvijetić-Koldžo was fired by the Clinical Center of Sarajevo University.

The termination of contract was issued on July 30 of this year, that is, five days after the Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo (CIN) broke a news that she went on to work with the patients after she had been sentenced to prison.

Cvijetić-Koldžo, an anesthesiologist, was sentenced in May 2013 to three years in prison because she caused the death of Svjetlane Zukić through medical negligence. In the summer of 2007, the doctor pierced Zukić’s spinal cord membrane while administering an epidural. She failed to report this and the patient was released from the hospital. Cvijetić-Koldžo continued to treat Zukić in her apartment.

Even though Zukić felt worse by the day, the doctor did not send her to see some other doctor, but insisted that this was all expected during the recovery. A month after giving birth Zukić died. The expert witnesses said during the trial that Zukić stood a chance of survival if she had been treated in hospital.

Until she was sent to serve time in Tuzla Penitentiary on July 6, Cvijetić-Koldžo had worked at the clinic. At the time when she committed the crime, the court could not take her doctor’s license, because the amendments to the Federation of BiH Criminal Code that made it possible were adopted only in 2010.

Sarajevo Canton Medical Association did not withdraw her license even a year after the verdict became final and binding. After the doctor was sent to serve time and fired from the Clinic, the Medical Association initiated the proceedings to withdraw her license. The Association’s President Fahrudin Kulenović said that its Ethical Committee was looking into the case of Cvijetić-Koldžo and decide to withdraw its license or not.

“I think that the procedure was faster considering that the whole cases has been going on for a very long time, “said Kulenović.