Dr. Đula Rušinović-Sunara, M. Sc., specialises in general surgery.
She is president of the Croatian Association for the Promotion of Patients’ Rights.
She is also a member of the Board of Governors of the World Association for Medical Law (WAML), and chairwoman of the WAML’s International Committee on Representatives of Patients’ Rights.
She was born on 22 April 1959. She attended elementary school, basic music school, secondary school, the Faculty of Medicine, and post-graduate studies in medicine in Rijeka, where she lived from 1961 to 1986.
She was a distinguished member of the national swimming team and winner of some 50 medals, 25 of which were gold medals, during her swimming career with Rijeka’s Primorje club from 1970 to 1973.
She graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the University in Rijeka in 1982, and got her master’s degree there in 1987. After completing her studies and traineeship, she worked for two years in primary health care in the following towns and institutions:
Kopar: Medical Centre, school doctor, paediatrics
Mali Lošinj: primary health care, tourist clinic
Pula: paediatrics, primary health care, airport doctor
Opatija: primary health-care, emergency service
Bakar: Secondary Maritime Centre, taught a course called “Medicine for Sailors”
Having acquiring the necessary prerequisites to apply for a specialisation, Dr. Rušinović-Sunara started specialist training in general surgery in Split, where she and her family live today.
She completed her specialist training by passing a specialisation exam on 5 July 1991. She then took part in the Homeland War as a volunteer, serving on the front line as the head of mobile surgery teams from August 1991 until 1994.
From mid-January to late April 1993 she was in Paris on a scholarship from the French government and Médecins du Monde. In line with Croatia’s war needs, this scholarship covered sub-specialised additional training in microvascular surgery.
In 1995 she established the first private surgery in Dalmatia.
In 1987 she married marine engineer Pavao Sunara, and has borne four children: Marcela (1988), Ivan (1990), Vinko (1994) and Emanuela (1996). During her last pregnancy, her status as a private entrepreneur was in legal limbo, and so she began to fight for the status of a mother-entrepreneur, which resulted in an amendment to Croatia’s Labour Act. Mother-entrepreneur status was thereby granted to entrepreneur mothers and unemployed mothers alike, with the possibility of three-year maternity leave for all mothers.
Shortly after the birth of her last child, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. While still receiving radiation treatment, she launched public activities aimed at demystifying and breaking taboos concerning malignant diseases and patients suffering from them. This was the beginning of her activities aimed at protecting patients’ rights. She started to cooperate closely with other activists, and together they founded a club of women with breast cancer in Split, followed by numerous patients’ associations all over Croatia.
In 1997 she completed post-graduate sub-specialised additional training in senology, and became a member of the first board of directors of the Croatian Senological Society, a professional organisation within the Croatian Medical Association. In May 1999 she became a court expert.
In March 1999, she founded the Croatian Association for the Promotion of Patients’ Rights, and since that time has served as its president, encouraging and actively participating in all of its projects. By the end of 2006 more than 60 projects had been initiated, the most important of which led to the creation of special legislation on patients’ rights in Croatia, developed in cooperation with the EU, at the end of 2004.
Since 2000 she has taken active part in many international and global conferences on patients’ rights and, in particular, health care law. In 2002 she became a member of the Board of Governors of the World Association of Medical Law (WAML), as a result of her views and activities promoting the idea of protecting patients’ rights, as well as her achievements in medicine and her understanding of the position and role of patients.
From 1998 to 2001, Dr. Rušinović-Sunara served as adviser for the prevention of malignant diseases at the Institute of Public Health of Croatia’s Split-DalmatiaCounty.
Afterwards she remained unemployed due to pervasive political corruption, direct discrimination, and her personal religious attitudes and non-party beliefs. She was finally forced to retire in 2004, having initiated labour dispute proceedings in October of 2001. These proceedings are still pending.
Through her numerous works on health care law, Dr. Rušinović-Sunara has significantly contributed to the development of this area in Croatia. She was one of the founders of the Croatian Association for Health Care Law and Ethics, established in March 2005.
As part of her efforts to contribute to establishing the rule of law, she organised independent lists of women candidates in six electoral districts during the 1999 parliamentary elections and lists with a 50-50% gender ratio in ten electoral districts during the 2003 parliamentary elections.
Also as part of her community activities, Dr. Rušinović-Sunara organised a roundtable on violence in sport following some extremely violent behaviour during a football match between the Croatian teams Hajduk and Dinamo. This roundtable was the starting point for the development of subsequent legislation.
As a member of the Coalition of Associations she also participated quite actively in developing a draft of the Information Access Act, which the Coalition subsequently presented to the public.
She has presented many specialist and scientific papers in the fields of medicine and health care law at numerous professional gatherings (Digestive Surgeons’ Congress, 1986 and 1987; 1st Congress of Croatian War Surgeons, 1994; World Congress on Medical Law, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006; International Congress on Medical Law, 2005; Congress of the Croatian Senological Society with international participants, 2001 and 2003; Nephrology Today, 2006; Congress of Croatian Nurses, 2006; and so on) and at a number of international conferences organised by the UN, EU, WHO and the International Centre for Health, Law and Ethics. Dr. Rušinović-Sunara has also cooperated intensively with the World Association for Medical Law and participated in organising three world congresses.
Her ideas on promoting the protection of patients’ rights have been recognised by the world’s most prominent experts. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the World Association for Medical Law (WAML) and the founder and chairwoman of the WAML’s International Committee for Representatives of Patients’ Rights. She is also the organiser of ongoing preparations for the Declaration on Representatives of Patients’ Rights.
In 2005 Dr. Rušinović-Sunara developed a national profile of health care norms for use in a WHO project.
She is the developer of the following innovations:
Dr. Rušinović-Sunara is the author of the following books:
Vrata (The Door), describing her struggle against a malignant disease. This book was among the first on this topic to receive a lot of media attention, as it was published in column form during her stay in the hospital for radiotherapy. For the author herself, this book opened the door to a realisation of the importance of demystifying and breaking the taboos regarding various malignant diseases and patients suffering from them. The events following the book’s publication encouraged her to launch a public campaign aimed at protecting patients’ rights, as a result of both her own personal experience and the experiences of many persons seeking psychological support, advice and/or other types of assistance. Since then, more than 6,000 people have sought and received her help.
Zašto se bavim politikom? (Why Am I Involved in Politics?) is a book in which the author, in a feminine and maternal way, and based on her own personal experience, talks about the need to foster different kinds of democracy, since the existing ones are perceived as being full of corruption. She speaks of the family’s influence on people’s lives, their views on society, and their creation of different political means for initiating democratic processes and engaging in politics. She also draws attention to the dangers facing the younger generation in a society that is inclined towards corruption. The author presents her vision of how politicians can perform their duties according to high moral standards.
Dr. Rušinović-Sunara is the creator of the following sculptures:
Apart from the sculptures Crucifix and Jesus Christ from Birth to Death on the Cross, all these works were created and exhibited for the first time during Croatia’s Homeland War at an exhibition organised by the 158th Brigade (to which Dr. Rušinović-Sunara also belonged) and the Visual Arts Section of the Brodosplit enterprise and held from 28 May to 10 June 1992, on the occasion of Statehood Day of the Republic of Croatia. At that time these works of art received particular attention in the media.
An independent exhibition of the aforementioned sculptures (except for The Last Supper and Resurrection)was organised at the Gallery of the Croatian Cultural Foundation Hrvatsko slovo from 11 April to 8 May 2006.
Hrvatski
