Serbian Doctors’ and Pharmacists’ Union leader says health care system broken

N1

The head of the Serbian Doctors’ and Pharmacists’ Union told N1 on Friday that the country’s health care system had broken down.

Dr Rade Panic, an anesthesiologist working in one of the red zones, told the N1 morning show that the situation in the country is “very, very bad” and called for an immediate reaction by the authorities. He warned that the hospitals in the COVID system were already full and that all other hospitals in the country would fill up. He add that “significantly stricter measures” should be introduced.  

“You can hear that I am very excited. I was in the kind of situation happening in Italy yesterday. At no time in my professional career did I expect to see this situation. I didn’t have room for people we consider young in medical terms nor did I have any place to transport them,” Panic said. He added that the situation is much worse than it was this summer with much worse symptoms and more young patients.

“There is a huge number of sick people and we are not really successful with their treatment in intensive care, the death rate is high once patients fall into the most serious condition,” the doctor said. Panic said that he felt impotent as do all doctors and nurses in Serbia and blamed that on Health Minister and fellow doctor Zlatibor Loncar. “I don’t understand why the government pandemic Crisis Staff is not in permanent session 24 hours a day… I am calling them to wake up and if they don’t know what’s happening get cars and drive around and see what’s happening,” he said.  

 Dr Predrag Kon told Friday’s news conference that he has no knowledge about the health care system crashing as Dr Rade Panic said earlier. He added that the does not know about seriously ill patients being turned back from hospitals.