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An increase in coronavirus cases is pushing hospitals the Balkans on the verge of collapse, Agence France-Presse reported.
After nearly a year of epidemics being more or less under control, infections have started to increase. The Western Balkans, one of the poorest corners of Europe, has seen its death toll double in the last month alone, reaching nearly 10,000.
“The situation reminds me of the war and I fear it could get worse during the winter,” the doctor, who requested anonymity, told AFP.
The crisis is exposing gaps in health systems that have long suffered from low funding and a brain drain crisis, with an exodus of promising young doctors and nurses leaving to seek better salaries and training abroad.
Even before the pandemic began, the Balkans had some of the lowest medical density rates in Europe, according to data from the World Health Organization.
Hospitals are now facing further shortages as staff fall victim to respiratory disease.
In Serbia, some 2,000 healthcare workers have been forced to self-isolate just as medical wards are witnessing a huge flood of patients filling their beds in the capital Belgrade. “I’ve never had such an experience in my professional career,” Rade Panic, president of a Serbian doctors’ union, told regional television channel N1 on Friday.
“I had no space for patients we consider young doctors, I had nowhere to transport them,” added the anesthetist, who works in the “red zone” of a hospital that treats the most serious cases of Covid-19.
Bosnia, North Macedonia is Montenegro they are all in the European top ten for the continent’s highest per capita death rates. Yet governments in the region have been reluctant to return to drastic lockdowns imposed at the start of the pandemic, opting instead for lighter restrictions such as early restaurant closures.
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