18.07.2020.
Minister Vulin: Military Hospital in Novi Sad has adapted its capacities and received COVID patients
Today, Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin visited the Military Hospital in Novi Sad which has adapted its capacities in order to receive COVID-19 patients.
The visit was also attended by Mayor of Novi Sad Miloš Vučević. Following the visit, Minister Vulin underlined that the Military Hospital in Novi Sad had given its capacities at disposal to Crisis unit and it participated in treatment of COVID-19 patients.
- Since yesterday, the hospital has already received 17 patients who were sent from the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina, and they will receive all necessary care in accordance with their health condition. I wish to thank the town of Novi Sad because they immediately accommodated us, and Novi Sad provided us with everything that we needed. We will ensure everything that the Crisis unit demands us to do, and we will enable more space, and our doctors and nurses will work even harder, and they will sacrifice both themselves and their families, but all of that will not be enough unless we all understand that we are the ones who can stop COVID and that we are the ones who can stop the infection – not the doctors, not the hospitals, not the institutions but us – the minister of defence stressed.
According to him, if gathering like the one we had in front of the National Assembly repeats, if such rampage repeats, we will not have capacities to treat all those people.
- We will simply not be able, nor would any health system of the world be able to withstand such a great number of newly infected in the same day who would come at the same time and seek help. We are here to help, the armed forces are here to help, and the armed forces are organised, equipped, ready, and every order of the Crisis unit and every order of the Supreme Commander is going to be executed. However, both the Serbian Armed Forces and the health system of Serbia have their limitations so we are the ones who can stop the virus, not the doctors, not the health system, not the armed forces – everything depends on us – stated Minister Vulin.
Speaking about the importance of including the Military Hospital in Novi Sad in the system of providing health care for COVID-19 patients in the territory of the town of Novi Sad, Mayor Vučević highlighted that he was grateful to all in the Ministry of Defence, and the staff of that hospital for their engagement.
- As a town, we made our efforts to be partners and to assist in everything that they require the most. We will continue working together on stabilising the epidemiological situation in Novi Sad, which is not simple but rather complex, and which will require much greater discipline of all the citizens. Otherwise, we will have a serious problem and we will not have enough hospital capacities to accommodate all the citizens unless the behaviour that we saw in previous days stops – stated Vučević stressing that the capacities were not sufficient and that everyone should be aware of that.
Head of the Military Hospital in Novi Sad Lieutenant Colonel Dragan Koruga MD underlined that the facility started functioning in COVID regime two days before and that the idea was that the hospital with 30 patient capacity, should work with the patients sent from the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina and continue their treatment or start a new one.
- As for the equipment and organisational segment, so far we have managed to organise everything, all in a very short period of two, three days, so that we have started receiving patients starting from yesterday – Lieutenant Colonel Koruga MD noted.
He added that the doctors from the Military Hospital in Novi Sad would go each day to the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina, where they would together with their colleagues participate in staff meetings, in order to be in contact every day in terms of expertise and organisation.
