The justice system in Croatia works quite quickly when you are just an ordinary citizen.
One of the stories to have drawn a lot of media attention in recent days is the one about a father from Koprivnica who was arrested after calling the Office of the President. Dragan Dolenec (44), the father of a seriously ill 14-year-old girl, called the Office of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović to seek her help. The call was answered by a secretary from the office, who told him to send a letter to the president explaining his problem, reports Index.hr on February 22, 2018.
The man got upset and said: “The best thing to do would be to go to the hospital, throw a bomb and butcher the physician.” He was immediately reported to the police who found him and arrested him.
His wife Kruna Dolenec revealed the history of the case for Podravski.hr.
Dragan and Kruna Dolenec have been struggling for 14 years with the serious illness with which their daughter has been diagnosed. She was born without kidneys, a bladder, a colon and with two wombs which have been removed in the meantime.
But, to have anything resembling a normal life, their daughter still needs more bladder surgery, as well as kidney transplant. The girl is in hospital with her mother Kruna, and her desperate father called the president's office. After failing to reach the president on the phone, Dolenec made his controversial remark. The very next day he was arrested and taken into custody.
“My husband is struggling with this situation, and he's seeking help anywhere he can, so he called the president. It turned out that he made a bomb threat but, believe me, he was just disappointed, and he would never do anything like that. He said it because he was upset. I travel to Zagreb each morning and return late in the evenings, and now I'm alone. Dragan didn't make a serious threat, but he's in custody in Varaždin. I don't know what to do. He's not here, and my daughter is struggling at the hospital,” said Kruna Dolenec for Podravski.hr.
The desperate parents have been looking for a solution for their daughter's medical problems for years. She could be helped by surgery at the Urology Centre in Cincinnati in the United States, but for that, they need the consent of the Croatian Health Insurance Institute, which they cannot get without the permission of their daughter's doctor.
“They keep sending us from one place to another, and that has been going on for years. We could help our daughter if we had the money to pay it privately, but we don't have it. I don't know how much it costs, but surely it's a lot of money. Since there's no other solution, and we can't wait any longer for the Health Insurance Institute and physicians to come to an agreement, I have to look for financial help to pay for the surgery for my little girl,” said Kruna Dolenec.
Translated from Index.hr.
