The health system in Serbia responded solidly to the challenge of the pandemic, showing resilience and perseverance based on the enthusiasm and love of doctors and nurses for their work and the desire to help people when they need it the most. I’m sorry that citizens still don’t understand that they need to help the healthcare system.
The healthcare system in Serbia, and the pandemic that hasn’t only hit Serbia but all of the planet’s countries, is something that came as a surprise to all health workers and healthcare systems. I must admit that, in my opinion, the Serbian healthcare system responded solidly, and showed resilience and perseverance based on the enthusiasm and love of doctors and nurses, not only for their work, but also in their desire to help people when they need it the most.
The healthcare system in Serbia, and the pandemic that hasn’t only hit Serbia but all of the planet’s countries, is something that came as a surprise to all health workers and healthcare systems. I must admit that, in my opinion, the Serbian healthcare system responded solidly, and showed resilience and perseverance based on the enthusiasm and love of doctors and nurses, not only for their work, but also in their desire to help people when they need it the most.
I’m speaking as a professor from the Faculty of Medicine in Niš and the Niš University Clinical Centre, which was the most overburdened in Serbia, and perhaps even in the Balkans, during the first quarter of the pandemic in early 2020. At one point we had over 1,200 hospitalised patients in UCC Niš. March, April and May will remain etched in the memories of all of us, because every infected patient from south-eastern Serbia – whether from Negotin, Kladovo, Preševo or Surdulica – was immediately transferred to the Niš Clinical Centre. We gradually familiarised ourselves with the virus, and COVID-dedicated hospitals slowly opened in Serbia, including south-eastern Serbia, so that the Niš Clinical Centre could start breathing more easily. We showed our tenacity and accepted every patient, even those who didn’t have a more severe clinical picture. Patients with a mild or moderate clinical picture were initially hospitalised in Čair Hall in Niš, as well as in the Belgrade Arena.
Serbia is Europe’s leader when it comes to incidences of chronic non-communicable diseases, caused by high blood pressure, heart attacks, cerebral haemorrhages and malignancy. We couldn’t provide these patients with our full attention and that will cost us.
Unfortunately, the virus forced us, as well as our colleagues around the world, to downgrade the prioritising of some operations, “non-urgent” interventions that didn’t require immediate medical attention, such as chronic inflammation and chronic non-communicable diseases. However, Serbia is Europe’s leader when it comes to incidences of chronic non-communicable diseases, caused by high blood pressure, heart attacks, cerebral haemorrhages and malignancy. Given that Serbs, and other citizens of the Balkans, like to smoke, eat fatty foods and drink alcohol, all of which form a winning combination for the development of tumour processes, we forgot about those patients to an extent and I’m sorry that citizens still haven’t grasped the severity of this pandemic and the need for them to help the healthcare system. First by helping themselves and helping their loved ones, but also by helping us health workers, all of us who are on the front line in the struggle against COVID-19. However, it is possible to survive COVID-19, and 80% of people will survive, but many patients are in danger, particularly those who have cancer or some chronic affliction.
That intervention couldn’t be performed because our anaesthesiologists are in the red zones. The secretion in this little one was organised and had blocked the chain of ear bones, and this child will have poor hearing, which is a tragedy in my opinion. That’s why it’s necessary for citizens to accept the appeals of health workers, and not charlatans who appear in the national media and on portals, who spread all kinds of lies and untruths about the virus, about treatments and about vaccines. And they need to understand that the only way out in this situation is protective, preventative measures, but also immunisation. The process of immunisation is a good of civilisation, something which – in addition to potable water – has saved many human lives, and now someone in the 21st century is telling lies in order to receive views, retweets or the sharing of some status on Facebook or Instagram, which has led many citizens to question whether they really need to receive the vaccine, or whether accepting the vaccine is dangerous for their lives or their health. As a full professor at the Faculty of Medicine, I’m sending the message that the vaccine is safe, that all vaccines approved by our agency for medicines and available on our market are safe. It is much better for a citizen to receive it than to come into contact with the virus and see if their immunity can overcome that virus, and to see what consequences it will have on their brain, ovaries, sperm. A virus can do a lot of damage, but a vaccine cannot.
Until this viral fire and its spread are extinguished, the most important message is to protect ourselves through prevention, maintaining our distance, avoiding closed spaces where there are a lot of people, and certainly through immunisation that represents the light at the end of the tunnel.
