Serbian doctors disagree over state of health care system

Epidemiologist Predrag Kon said that the medical system had done well so dar while his colleague Zoran Radovanovic feels that the system is lacking but that the medical professionals in it deserve respect.  

Kon told N1 on Thursday that the health care sector in Serbia had done well in the first two weeks of the pandemic and cited the fact that there was no sudden leap in the number of coronavirus cases, He said that the number of patients with respiratory ailments was significantly lower than a week earlier just two days after the authorities imposed stricter measures.  

Kon said that the coronavirus test have to be used in the most rational way as possible even though the World Health Organization recommended as much testing as possible for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. He said that everyone who exhibits mild symptoms can’t be tested even if they have developed COVID-19.  

Radovanovic, a retired university professor, told Nedeljnik weekly that he respects Serbian doctors specialized in epidemics and infectious diseases but regrets the circumstances they work in. “I believe in our medical professionals but not in the health care system, not the way it is organized or how it operates,” he said.  

He warned that it takes two or three seasons for an infectious disease such as this coronavirus to settle and tame down and added that the spring of 2021 seems to be a reasonable time for society to deal with the coronavirus.  

Radovanovic said that large numbers of people in Serbia will contract the disease in that time, some of who will have a mild case with no evident symptoms, adding that just a fifth of the people who exhibit symptoms will be sick enough to warrant hospitalization and a fourth of those will get respirator treatment which means between 5,000 and 10,000.

The Serbian authorities imposed a state of emergency across the country on Sunday, March 15 calling the population to stay at home to help stop the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and later imposing a curfew and ban on movement for the elderly.