The Ministry of Health intends to turn the general hospitals in Berane and Kotor into two clinical and hospital centers. This is written in the explanation of the draft law on health care, which has been under public debate since the end of November.
According to the same draft, general hospitals cannot perform invasive cardiovascular procedures in angio rooms, for which the Ministry previously allocated EUR 2.2 million to two hospitals for these purposes. Such procedures, however, if the law is adopted, will be able to be performed in newly established clinical and hospital centers in the north and south of the country.
Currently, only the Clinical Center (KC) has an Angio-Salu, as an institution of the tertiary level of health care, and according to the data of that institution, thousands of various emergency procedures, coronary angiography, stent placement and treatment of hundreds of heart attack patients from all regions of Montenegro.
This summer, the government decided to allocate more than a third of the 5.16 million EUR in donations from citizens and businessmen for the fight against the coronavirus to the purchase of two angio-rooms, which will be in the general hospitals in Berane and Kotor, in order to, they claim, develop modern cardiology in the north and south and reduced the flow of patients to KC. A total of 2.2 million EUR has been earmarked for the purchase of the angio-room.
According to the conclusion, the Government then decided to divert 387,200 euros for the purchase of two digital mammograms, also for Beran and Kotor hospitals, so that, they claim, breast cancer screening, from which approximately 400 women fall ill and 127 die in Montenegro annually, would be expanded to national level.
The rest of the money from the covid donations was earmarked for several more health institutions, namely the purchase of ambulances, magnetic resonance imaging, an X-ray machine and other, as they stated, “emergency purchases”.
Part of the public believed that the entire procedure for distributing money from donations was non-transparent, and that there was no strategic planning and assessment of efficiency, as well as an analysis according to which it was decided that it was more expedient to “shred” the donated funds according to the “everyone a little” system.
According to the available data, the Kotor hospital has already begun the procurement of an angio-room and announced a tender worth around EUR 900,000 at the end of November. The tender was canceled at the beginning of December, due to the fact that they had to significantly change the tender documentation before the deadline for submitting bids expired.
1,101,100 euros have already been paid to the Beran hospital for the angio-room, and the institution announced four months ago that it will soon receive an angio-room in which stents will be implanted in patients from almost the entire northern region, who previously had to travel to Podgorica and KC.
- We already have cardiologists and radiologists who will specialize in the installation of stents, and the equipment will be state-of-the-art – the director of that institution, Milorad Magdelinić, told RTCG.
The Minister of Health Dragoslav Šćekić said last week that he hopes that the deputies will vote for the law on health care, which is now in the form of a draft, so that the citizens of the north and south will get regional health centers.
- In order for the General Hospital in Berane to be declared a regional health center for the north, and the General Hospital Kotor for the south of Montenegro, it is necessary to adopt a new law that is in the process. We expect that all MPs, when the law is in the Montenegrin parliament, will show responsibility towards the north and south of our country and that they will vote in the interests of the citizens – Šćekić said, local media writes.
