Serbian doctor warns health care system has broken down

The head of a Belgrade lung disease clinic told N1 on Thursday that the health care system has broken down and that there soon won’t be enough people to work in it.

Oglas

Pulmologist Dejan Zujovic said that the more people get infected, the more serious cases there will be and added that “we are entering a very red zone, there is no one left to work”. According to him, the health care system “broke down long ago”. “We are now paying for all the stupid things that were done in previous years, such as the decree banning hiring in the public sector which made doctors equal to desk clerks… There were no residencies, no doctors hired and you get to the point where there are no doctors,” Zujovic said, adding that at present there is a shortage of anesthesiologists.

“If an oncology patient can’t get a chest scan and has to go to a private practice and has been paying health care insurance fees for 30 years, then there is no system. The system has broken down,” the doctor said.

The head of the day clinic at the City Lung Disease Department, warned that the government’s pandemic Crisis Staff are just the voice of one man, meeting the needs of the current regime. He said that professional services in all the countries of the Western Balkans should meet and look for a common solution to fight the pandemic. “You can’t solve this without cooperation with other societies, with neighbors,” he said.

The doctor warned that a curfew is just a sign of society’s inability to deal with the situation, the ineptness of the authorities and the Crisis Staff.

“We are headed for a total breakdown as a society. We have crazy recommendations by the Crisis Staff, a complete fragmentation of society and we can’t agree on any one single thing,” he said. “This story will end one day. Don’t wake up and say you didn’t know,” he said.

Asked about herd immunity, Zujovic said that Serbia can’t compare to Sweden.. “Our population has been systematically devastated for the past 30 years – with the quality of life, food, water, air, monthly income etc. Our immunity cannot be compared to Sweden’s, we will always have more dead than Sweden if we go down that road,” the doctor said.

Teme