Eva Haljecka Petković

Eva Haljecka Petković (1870–1947) was a Serbian physician and an activist for the rights of women doctors. She was the first female gynecologist in the Balkans, the first head of the Department of Maternity and Women's Diseases in Niš, and the first woman who performed a caesarean section in Serbia.

Early years and education Eva Haljecka Petković was born in 1870, in a village of Congress Poland, at the border with the Russian Empire. Eva's mother died during her childbirth. Her father, Marko Haljecki, was a construction engineer. Due to the nature of his business, she often traveled with him and moved often. In Niš, she served as the head of the District Hospital during the Balkan Wars from 1912 to 1913. During the World War I, from 1915, she was a prisoner of the Bulgarian army during the occupation of Nis, but returned to her position in December 1918 through September 1919. Besides the work of a manager and a doctor, Petković also worked in cholera slums, where there were venereal, ocular and other patients, whom the Nis-English hospital did not want to receive at the time. After working as head of the District Hospital to the end of World War I, Eva became an assistant doctor at the Department of Maternity and Women's Diseases of the Nis District Hospital the same year. On 3 January 1920, by the decree of the Ministry, she became the head of the Department of the Niš District Hospital,

She devoted her lifetime to professional work and improvement of medicine, especially to the improvement of women's health. She was one of the most active members of the Serbian Medical Society in Belgrade and Nis. For her devotion and work in the field of medicine, she was honored with the Royal Order of the Holy Savior of the Fifth Order (1913); the Cross of Mercy, for caring for sick and wounded during and after the war (1914); and the Royal Order of the Holy Savior of the Fourth Order (1915). She died in 1947.