Sarajevo general hospital Abdulah Nakas had signed a purchase agreement with a company to buy respirators, but the company decided to withhold them for Italy, where the number of patients is still soaring, hospital's General Manager dr Zlatko Kravic told N1 on Friday.
“The general hospital has eight respirators. In normal circumstances, that is more than enough, but in case of a coronavirus outbreak and in case it takes a dangerous form in patients, that number is inadequate. When it comes to the market for respirators – there's chaos there,” Kravic said. “We even signed a purchase agreement for the respirators which should arrive in Bosnia next week, however, the company producing them decided to withhold them from the countries with a low number of coronavirus cases, so they practically sent them to Italy. We're looking for alternatives.”
Asked if preventive measures of taking the patients’ temperature and sanitizing their hands at the entrance are enough, the doctor said these are not the only measures they are taking.
“We mustn't allow patients with coronavirus to enter the hospital the usual way. They will enter in a different way, through the area designated for the disinfection of the patient, where the properly dressed medical staff will welcome them,” he said for N1.
The hospital's General Manager stressed that the most important thing is to get what they lack the most at the moment, and those are face masks, protective clothes, specific medicine recommended for the treatment of symptoms of the disease, respirators and everything else needed in case of an outbreak.
“The general hospital doesn't have an isolation ward, but we need to be well prepared and we're working on it in case there is a large number of patients and all health care facilities will be turned into isolation wards. We'll all be in the function of helping our patients and we're ready to enter the cantonal system of isolation wards, including this hospital which is completely normal and our duty,” Kravic said.
His message to the citizens is to listen to the health authorities and not to panic.
“The most important thing is for the virus not to enter the health care facilities in the wrong way, but in a controlled manner so we don't have to close off the entire building,” Kravic added.
