Doctors of Bjelopolje hospital on July 6 in the dock

The trial of Bjelopolje doctors, accused of the infection of four and the death of one baby, is scheduled for July 6. Tomislav Jeremić, Zvonko Puletić, Haka Tahirović and Jela Cimbaljević are accused of a serious crime against human health, i.e. for failure to comply with health regulations for the suppression of a dangerous infectious disease.

The case was assigned to judge Vidomir Bošković. If proven in court guilt, doctors are threatened prison sentence from two to 12 year.

The indictment followed findings of the Forensic Medicine Board (SMO) of Medicine faculty in Belgrade, in which they stated to the hospital in Bijelo It was about an epidemic in the field early neonatal sepsis:

"If the doctors had acted in accordance with the Law on the Protection of the Population from Infectious Diseases (if they had taken the prescribed measures after discovering the infection...), the spread of the infection and the outbreak of the epidemic would have been prevented," the SMO's findings state.

The prosecution reasoned that Jeremić did not act in accordance with the regulations and formed a team for the supervision, prevention and control of hospital infections, and the other accused doctors did not take appropriate hygiene measures in the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department and the Department of Neonatology.

It also says that Dr. Puletić did not instruct pregnant women to take vaginal swabs before giving birth, and during admission to the Gynecology Department.

"All this led to a poor hygienic-epidemiological status in the Gynecology-Obstetrics Department and the Department of Neonatology, which led to the infection caused by pathogenic bacteria and the dangerous infectious disease of neonatal sepsis in five newborns, one of whom died. The defendant despite two recorded cases of a dangerous infectious disease, they did not immediately take measures to suppress hospital infection, so work continued in the wards under the same hygienic conditions," the indictment reads.

It is written for Cimbaljević that, from November 2 to 12 last year, she did not act in accordance with the regulations and reported that, after receiving two newborns, she diagnosed a dangerous infectious disease.

"Due to the failure to report the occurrence of neonatal sepsis, work continued at the Department of Neonatology, where three more newborns were later admitted. All three newborns also fell ill with a dangerous infectious disease. As a result of the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis in one newborn, death occurred in the Clinical Center. where the newborns were referred for further treatment," the indictment reads.