10.11.2017.

The Best when it is the Hardest

Today, in Novi Sad Fair Master Centre, an Official Ceremony was held to mark 11th November, Day of Military Medical Centre in Novi Sad and 231st anniversary of the establishment of the military hospital in Novi Sad.

On that occasion, Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin, explained that the Military Health system had 3800 members who during one year take care of more than 115 thousand military insured individuals and over 300 thousand civilians.

- Military health is one of the most significant segments of the Serbian Armed Forces system and it is certain that the system of our defence could not be imagined without these people.

These are good and hard-working people these are people who with self-denial and self-sacrifice give all they can so that everyone, be it soldier or civilian, can get better – the minister of defence said thanking the medical workers on their dedicated work.

He underlined that the military health system would be improved, and that new equipment was to be procured and that there would be no shortages of medicines, and that military insured individuals would always be taken care of and they would always have priority.

- We will to strengthen primarily our military medical centres, in order to, among other, ensure that our insured members have the best possible protection where they live. We will continue fighting and, by legal solutions, and I chiefly refer to the Law on the Serbian Armed Forces, significantly enhance their position – Minister Vulin said.

Addressing the present at the celebration, Minister Vulin pointed out that each year several hundred members of our military health was deployed to peacekeeping missions worldwide.

- From Lebanon, to Central African Republic, Congo, Somalia, Cyprus, they spread the goodness not of Serbian health work, not of the Serbian Armed Forces, but of the people that we belong to. So far, I have not heard from anyone, and I have listened and talked to many people, that they had an opportunity to meet a Serbian doctor, technician, member of the Serbian Armed Forces, and that they had something bad to say about them. I have not heard yet anyone saying that they do not know, that they are not able, that they would not and love not – the minister said, adding that the armed forces were also like that just like the people they belonged to.

- When the times are tough and extremely difficult, you are the first to arrive at the scene from which everyone turns the head and you fill your eyes with horrors that only people are capable of doing to each other. And when you find yourselves there, you do not ask whose the child is lying and bleeding in the dirt, you do not asks for the name of that woman who called for help, because there is no time to recognise the name, last name, religion or nation of the person that you have just dragged from the rain of bullets. In those tough and extremely difficult times, you are where people are suffering and that is why the people love and appreciate you. There can always be someone who knows more, and who has studied longer, but it is difficult to find someone who was faced so many times with what a man can do to the other man. That is why I ask from you to be like you were in those tough and extremely difficult times when it was required to go where people were suffering, where the youngest died, where the best disappeared, and I want you not to change and to be worthy of that memory – the minister of defence said congratulating the holiday to the present.

Head of the Military Medical Centre in Novi Sad, Colonel Bratoljub Brkljača emphasised that the MMC Novi Sad was important because it was the only stationary military establishment in Vojvodina.

- We have always been on the frontlines; we have always been the first to take care of the wounded, equally taking care of prisoners and our own wounded. We were first to organise a quarantine for the diseased suffering from Bird influenza during Exit, and we received the surgical patients from Srem in less than an hour during the floods – Colonel Brkljača said stressing that the MMC Novi Sad was always ready and capable to be where it was required.

He underscored that the MMC Novi Sad worked for civilians as well six years in a row and that it belonged to the network of health institutions of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and that from 1st January it would officially be titled Military Hospital Novi Sad and be a teaching base of the Medical Faculty of Novi Sad.
Today’s celebration was an opportunity to present gold plaques of the Military Medical Centre to deserving individuals. Acting Head of Military Medical Department Colonel Uglješa Jovičić conferred the awards to the Head of South Bačka region Mile Novaković, Urgent Care Centre of the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina, Government of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.

The official ceremony was attended by the Commander of the First Army Brigade, Brigadier General Željko Petrović, Mayor of Novi Sad Miloš Vučević, Provincial Secretary for Health Dr Zoran Gojković, representatives of the Ministry of Defence and Serbian Armed Forces, representatives of religious communities and local self-government and numerous guests.

The history of the Military Hospital in Novi Sad is tightly linked to the history of the Petrovaradin Fortress. Only several years after the opening of Berlin charite, the oldest hospital in the world, upon a decree of Emperor Joseph the Second, in 1786, a Franciscan monastery in the foundation of the Petrovaradin Fortress was transformed in a military hospital, the only one in this part of the Europe at that time. In 19th century, additional facilities were constructed, and after the First World War a major renovation was conducted. In 1952, it became Military Hospital of Novi Sad zone, and in 1984 it was named Military Medical Centre Novi Sad.