Five words on social media - "Rest in peace, general, and thank you" - next to a photo of Ratko Mladić. That's all it took for Dr Jelena Jović to lose her job at the Tomislavgrad Health Centre. And she found a new one fast: the University Clinical Centre of Republika Srpska in Banja Luka hired her and announced it publicly, on a day of celebration.

In Tomislavgrad the procedure was short. The director of the Health Centre, Ivanka Živković, said disciplinary proceedings had been carried out, that it had been established the doctor really had made the post, and that the case had been reported to the police. "At the Tomislavgrad Health Centre there is not, and there will not be, any place for glorifying war crimes, spreading hatred and actions that insult the victims and undermine patients' trust in our institution," she said.

From Banja Luka came an entirely different tone. "Today Dr Jelena Jović began employment at the UCC of Republika Srpska, after her employment at the Tomislavgrad Health Centre ended under circumstances that attracted public attention," the clinical centre announced. The hiring was timed to mark the eighth anniversary of its Emergency Centre, attended by representatives of the UDAS association. "Circumstances that attracted attention" - that is how a public hospital describes glorifying a man convicted of genocide.

The facts about Mladić are not a matter of opinion. The former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska died on 27 August in The Hague, aged 84, while serving a life sentence for the Srebrenica genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was buried on 7 September at Topčider Cemetery in Belgrade, with military honours. The funeral was attended by members of the Serbian Armed Forces, several ministers in the Serbian government, Republika Srpska officials and Aleksandar Vučić's son, Danilo.

The doctor chose for herself what to post and bears the consequences herself. The institution is another story. When a public hospital hires her and announces it with ceremony, using a euphemism instead of a word about the post itself, it stops being the view of one doctor and becomes the message of the institution - to the patients and to the families of victims who will walk into that Emergency Centre.

The Balkans know all too well the scene in which the same man is a convicted war criminal on one side of a border and a hero on the other. Who in Banja Luka will answer for the message the hospital sent?