The Franciscan hospital in Nova Bila was established on December 15th 1992 within the pastoral premises in Nova Bila. It was named after the Franciscan Mate Nikolić who graduated in medicine in Fedelsberg in 1807 and thus became the first doctor in Bosnia and Herzegovina to hold a degree in medicine.
An urgent need for hospital facilities on the territory of Vitez, Busovača, Novi Travnik and the free regions of the Travnik community pressed the local Franciscans and doctors to take action and set up a medical center to provide full medical care to the population of 70 to 80 thousand inhabitants – among them 12 thousand children and about 20 thousand refugees.
The war inflicted upon the Croats by the Serbs in 1992 and the hostilities against the Muslims in 1993 brought many hardships and miseries to the Croatian population in the Lašvanska valley. The parochial Holy Spirit’s church was converted into a hospital. The wooden church benches were used as hospital beds and the church basement was made into an improvised operating theater. Dr. Tihomir Perić, Head of the Medical Department and the head doctor Branimir Kuliš claim that, during the warring activities, the Nova Bila doctors attended 3 500 wounded soldiers and civilians and treated more than 7 000 persons suffering from civil diseases. Seven hundred and fifty operations under total anesthesia and two thousand four hundred and twenty operations under local anesthesia were carried out. During the most difficult moments and under unbearable conditions the hospital carried on with a very close cooperation with the health centers in Novi Travnik, Nova Bila, Vitez and Busovača. Lightly wounded patients were evacuated into the field medical stations and the heavily wounded patients were kept in the hospital. The war medical team of the Franciscan hospital in Nova Bila was made up of three surgeons, one neuropsychiatrist, a resident gynecologist, two X – ray technicians, three theatre nurses, two midwives, two pharmacists and about sixty nurses, medical technicians and medical undergraduates. Most of the doctors and staff in the hotel were refugees themselves, or local people who had lost their homes and all possessions in the war raids. They still work without any salaries or wages as they dad all the time during the war.
The most important day for the Croats in the region was December 20th 1993, when the convoy “The White road to Nova Bila and Bosna Srebrena” arrived to the hospital bringing relief and moral support from the Croatian people to their suffering brothers in the Lašvanska valley.
The Franciscan hospital Dr. Mate Nikolić in Nova Bila will hold a very special place in all medical records for its exceptional achievements in the field of war surgery and remarkable contribution to civil medicine in general. A small parish office was a place where difficult operations were carried out with a help of improvised oxygen and anesthetic equipment. The medical guest experts from Europe and the United States have highly praised and admired the results of the Nova Bila medical team.
The hospital church has thus become the symbol of courage and resistance of the Croatian people. It was with joy that the inhabitants of the Lašvanska valley heard of the project of building a new hospital with 120 to 160 beds in Nova Bila. President Franjo Tuđman is Head of the Committee for planning and carrying out the construction works of the new hospital. It is a sign of appreciation to the Franciscan Franjo Grebenar, hospital director and to the Franciscan Zoran Livančić, hospital secretary.
