The establishment of health cooperatives is the milestone in the development
of the health system in the Kingdom of SCS and later in Yugoslavia.
Healthcare cooperatives were applied for the first time in our area with
joint efforts of the Ministry of National Health, national movements and
International Organizations, and above all the United States Mission to help
the Serbian people. The heavy public health image of the people after the
First World War initiated healthcare cooperatives. Numerous obstacles were
in the path of establishment and development of health cooperatives.
However, due to good organization, mutual coordination of all important
agents and also solidarity of the cooperative spirit, these problems were
surpassed. The positive role of health cooperatives can best be seen in
comparing the results of public health problems after the World War I and in
the period before the Second World War, as shown in the paper. The first
health cooperatives were established in 1922, and until the beginning of the
Second World War, their number had grown, as well as the number of
cooperatives and beneficiaries of services provided by health cooperatives.
One of the most significant obstacles in the establishment and operation of
health cooperatives is the financial nature, but also the problems of the
uneducated population and numerous ?inherited? problems in the national
health after the previous wars. However, by means of good work, cooperatives
has been saving and every year they have more and more money reinvested in
the desire to improve their position and provide better health care. The
role of a physician has changed from a passive one ?waiting? at an
outpatient clinic for the patients to be examined to active one in which a
cooperative doctor travels to the patients? locations with his team. This
approach has strengthened prevention, reduced the number of people infected
with infectious and other diseases and influenced the education of the
population, which was prone to illiterate and poor educational status. The
?spirit? of cooperatives was strong and it was also one of the reasons for
the great success of healthcare cooperatives. After initial success, experts
from around the world - from Japan, China, India and USA, Romania, Bulgaria,
Poland, France were interested in transferring knowledge about the
development of this innovative movement. Numerous healthcare cooperatives in
the world have been created just by the model that our experts have
developed. This global importance should be emphasized and new models of
health care cooperatives are worth exploring further.