19.07.2020.
Minister Vulin in Kragujevac: The Serbian Armed Forces are setting up temporary COVID hospitals wherever it is necessary
Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin visited today a temporary hospital that was set up in Šumadija Fair facilities in Kragujevac, where he had an opportunity to make sure that equipping of that temporary hospital where COVID-19 patients will be treated is going as planned.
Minister Vulin highlighted that the Serbian Armed Forces were at disposal to their country and that the armed forces were there to set up temporary COVID hospitals wherever it was necessary and deemed to be purposeful according to directions of the Crisis team established by the Government of the Republic of Serbia.
- In the first wave of the pandemic, the armed forces set up similar hospitals and that saved and protected our health system from overburdening and breaking, because all those patients who did not need to be hospitalised, were place in temporary hospitals. Now, as you can see, on the basis of that experience, we are doing it again, hoping that all that will not be necessary and that we will have managed to restrain the pandemic before that – Minister Vulin said.
He also stressed that there did not exist a health system or the armed forces or doctors capable of protecting us from the pandemic unless we did it ourselves.
- We can defeat the pandemic ourselves and there is no health system that can withstand several thousand people who will come on the same day and ask for the same service or the same treatment. No one will be left unattended, and no one will be left without care, and that is why we are setting up these temporary COVID hospitals, but we have to know that it depends solely on each of us whether we will avoid coming here. As long as we adhere to doctors’ advice, everything will be all right. Each of us is responsible for himself, his health and the health of his loved ones. The Serbian Armed Forces will do everything that it takes, as an organised and orderly system, because we are here to help our people and our country, but each of us can help Serbia the most – Minister Vulin sent the message.
As Deputy Commander of the 310th Air Defence Self-Propelled Missile Battalion of the 250th Air Defence Missile Brigade Major Igor Vidanović said, members of that unit are engaged on establishing a temporary COVID hospital in Kragujevac.
- At the same time the 310th Self-Propelled Missile Battalion acts as the Command of the Town of Kragujevac Garrison, so it actively participates today, like it did in the previous period, in providing assistance and support to civilian authorities – Major Vidanović stressed noting that members of the armed forces were there to help the citizens of our country in the fight against the outbreak, particularly underlining good cooperation with the bodies of local government.
According to Deputy Mayor Ivica Momčilović, Kragujevac is one of the first towns which declared emergency situation because of the unfavourable epidemiological situation.
- Currently, the situation in Kragujevac is serious, but we are keeping it under control. We are grateful to our Clinical Centre, Public Health Institute and Health Centre Kragujevac, and of course to the Serbian Armed Forces which are providing assistance to us in this crisis period and now during the setup of the temporary COVID hospital as well. The situation in Kragujevac is such that we have between 30 and 60 new cases every day and the number is growing. We hope that soon enough there will be a decrease in number of new infections because of introduced epidemiological measures, but until then we are ready and we are here to help all our citizens – Momčilović said.
Director of the Clinical Centre Kragujevac Predrag Sazdanović MD said that the temporary hospital “Šumadija Fair” makes a part of Infectious Disease Clinic and that it would be equipped with 150 to 170 beds for patients coming out from the Clinical Centre Kragujevac, but who were still not for house care.
- That is the first group of patients, and for the second group of patients we will try to prevent so-called horizontal spreading of infection in their families, meaning that the COVID-19 positive patients will be hospitalised here, and they will receive appropriate medical treatment and therapy so we will turn that kind of self-isolation into isolation so that they will not become new sources of infection – Doctor Sezdanović said adding that the preparations were almost at the end and that the temporary hospital would start working in a day or two if that proved to be necessary.
- The epidemiological situation is very serious. Patients from all surrounding hospitals are arriving in the Clinical Centre Kragujevac, while Kragujevac and Šumadija already have more than 1300 COVID positive patients. They are all potential patients of the Clinical Centre Kragujevac and of this temporary hospital and that is why we are forced to set it up which we have successfully done today. Without the Ministry of Defence this would have been impossible to achieve. The Ministry of Defence like in all other crisis situations has always helped the health system and people of Serbia. That is something that we all know and something that we should always emphasise. This temporary hospital will be staffed with doctors and technicians form Health Centre Kragujevac, Occupational Medicine Centre “Zastava”, Health Centre Topola, Rača, Batočina, Lapovo and we will all help patients with less severe symptoms to get well as soon as possible and go home. According to plans, 20 doctors and 38 technicians will work here, but their number will be much higher if the number of patients increases in the temporary hospital “Šumadija Fair” – Doctor Sazdanović said.
The visit was attended by Head of Military Health Department Major General Uglješa Jovičić, Commander of the 250th Air Defence Missile Brigade Brigadier General Tiosav Janković and representatives of institutions of the town of Kragujevac.
