Montenegrin medicine does not need reform, but transformation and complete depoliticization, assessed the Deputy Prime Minister for Labor, Education, Health and Social Policy Srđan Pavićević, stating that after that, strategic documents should be drawn up on the basis of which further steps would be planned.
He said that first politics must get out of medicine, which it brutally entered in the early 90s.
"Now we need to send her elegantly out of medicine and explain that politics does not live there. Medicine should be left to the profession and experts. Then it will be much easier to put things in their place," Pavićević said in an interview with the MINA agency.
He pointed out that after the depoliticization of medicine, which must be carried out to the end, high-quality strategic documents should be prepared in order to plan further steps in accordance with them.
Pavićević stated that there are many strategic documents that have started to be worked on to some extent, but that none of them have been completed to the end - starting with disease registers, and ending with disease registers, clinical guides, basic service packages, specification of basic service packages and others.
"When we do that, then we can slowly map the problems and adequately build a strategy of modern medicine on them. Until we know what we suffer from, what we die from the most, which disability we most often carry, we can't even put the right accents in the right places," believes Pavićević. .
According to him, education must be fundamentally changed, because the way in which the Montenegrin medical staff is educated in certain segments is somewhat outdated.
"Young, ambitious people must force themselves to finish good schools. The moment when knowledge enters Montenegrin medicine, we won't even need special strategies, memoranda. Everything stems from knowledge," said Pavićević.
Speaking about the departure of doctors, Pavićević said that this problem exists in Montenegro as much as in other countries, but that in our country it is misused in some cases.
"Someone wanted to glorify that problem in an inadequate way, very often within the framework of their political aspirations and goals. There were and will be departures, and there have been and will be arrivals, that is a completely normal story and that has always happened," Pavićević said. .
He pointed out that doctors' salaries are relatively decent, but that there are still departures, which indicates that not only salary was the reason for the outflow of staff.
Pavićević said that a high salary does not mean much to a doctor, if he does not know, does not know how and cannot work, if he has nothing to work with, if he is not connected to modern systems.
He said that the healthcare system lacks subspecialists and specialists, but that Montenegrin citizens were treated successfully even at a time when there were much fewer doctors and specialists.
"The fact is that science develops every day and tends towards narrow specialties in which you become an expert. The way of education in Europe and in the world is completely different, you deal with one problem", said Pavićević.
Speaking about the construction of the city hospital in Podgorica, Pavićević said that the capital already has such an institution, which was built in 1974.
"I don't know who the idea came from. We have a city hospital. It's a hospital in Kruševac that was dedicated to the health needs of the population from Podgorica, Danilovgrad, Kolašin and the suburbs, Zeta and Bjelopovalić," explained Pavićević.
He said that the facility is very attractive for a city hospital, but that it was first turned into a clinical hospital center, and then into the Clinical Center of Montenegro (KCCG).
"Then we moved into that space new facilities, new methods, which led to work congestion. Because the hospital, which was intended for some 100 thousand inhabitants, was turned into a KCCG, which the whole of Montenegro, all 600 thousand citizens, is counting on." Pavićević pointed out.
He added that if something needs to be built, then it is a new clinical center.
"Which should be created from tertiary levels of medicine, ultra-modern and ultra-developed medicine, which should be united under one roof and at the service of the whole of Montenegro," Pavićević said.
He believes that the clinical center should be an integral part of the complex of health institutions in that location.
Pavićević said that his idea was for the new clinical center to be built behind Radio Television of Montenegro, in the place where the hotel was supposed to be built, to have two floors below ground and four above.
"To transfer all modern facilities of the tertiary level there. And to connect it with destinations in the current KCCG by means of warm underground corridors. And to have that area fenced off and prohibited for traffic", said Pavićević and added that in this way, the so-called medical district.
"There is the Faculty of Medicine, the Institute of Public Health, the National Blood Institute, the Institute of Children's Diseases, there is the large city hospital in Podgorica and there is the clinical center. There is also staff that can be mobile from one place to another, if necessary", emphasized Pavićević.
Speaking about the situation in the north of Montenegro, after visiting some municipalities with the Minister of Health, Vojislav Šimun, Pavićević said that he saw a big difference in the health institutions in some cities.
Pavićević said that he was delighted with the hospital in Bijela Polje, which, as he said, has been run by an agile, talented medical manager and physician, Kenan Erović, for the past few years.
"We saw quality contents of contemporary and modern medicine located in one place. Erović did it excellently and I was impressed by what we saw in Bijelo Polje", said Pavićević.
He said that the medics from Beran are implementing several new programs, progressive and avant-garde, and that he hopes that they will succeed in justifying the name Clinical and Hospital Center.
Pavićević said that Bijelo Polje and Berane are one picture, and Pljevlja is completely different.
"Pljevlja has a hospital that is not worthy of that city. In other words, Pljevlja, as an ancient town, must have a much better hospital than it has now. The focus of Montenegrin medicine and politics must be on that city," believes Pavićević.
He said that the Government must help the people of Pljevlja to get a quality medical center.
Pavićević believes that a combination of quality management between the local self-government and the medical center should be created, and that the state should participate with plans, projects, financing and investments.
"It is a process that will certainly start very quickly. Due to the combination of circumstances, a large number of my colleagues are from Pljevlja. I hope that this will encourage them to contribute to making that process as fast as possible," said Pavićević.
Speaking about the possibility of building a new institute for children's diseases, Pavićević said that it has a special weight in the professional, organizational and professional part.
"If there is a personification of medical and human humanity and nobility in the profession, then it is a children's hospital or Institute. And if there is a population that seeks absolute priority in its care, then it is children," believes Pavićević.
He said that the current children's hospital is more than 60 years old, that it has an outdated concept, and that children in Montenegro and Podgorica deserve better conditions for treatment.
Pavićević said that he opened this story with the Austrian ambassador, Karl Miller, who showed interest in this topic.
Pavićević said that the inter-expert group should write a platform or memorandum of cooperation and start a project with the aim of building a new children's hospital or a new institute for children's diseases.
"For me, not as a doctor and a professional, but as a man, who, due to a combination of circumstances, is in politics, that would be the absolute greatest success I have achieved. Because that is the number one priority," said Pavićević.
When asked how to solve the problem of waiting lists, Pavićević said that he was the first to bring waiting lists to Montenegro when he opened cardiac surgery.
He stated that when they talk about waiting lists, they talk about the organization of KCCG, emphasizing that they do not exist in Pljevlja, Bijelo Polje, Berane, Nikšić, Kotor, Igalo.
"Why don't we try to implement quality programs in all destinations. We can do excellent surgery in Berane, excellent gynecology in Cetinje, excellent interventional medicine in Kotor, excellent orthopedics in Bijeli Polje. Why don't we network Montenegro with quality programs," Pavicevic pointed out. .
He said that it is imperative for the Government to network Montenegro with quality programs carried by quality, ambitious people who are found by the municipal management and management of medical institutions.
Asked to comment on the latest results of the PISA test, Pavićević, whose department also includes education, said that the topic is for a good quality analysis "in which there must not be a trace of populism".
"Analysis that has to be analytical, studious, expert. And we have to find the reason why it is like that. The moment you find the reasons, then you have a way to find a solution to eliminate those samples", emphasized Pavićević.
He assessed that some values have been lost in Montenegro, and new ones have not been found and adopted.
"In my time, students were shy of professors, they had great respect for them and were afraid of the grades they would give them. Today, we have professors who are afraid of their students, who are shy of their students to say what they think," he assessed Pavićević.
He said that last year, when 500 high school graduates from Montenegro failed the external exam due to copying, the government replaced the leadership of the Examination Center.
"We simply removed one commission, brought in another that acknowledged the rewritten tasks, and thus we confirmed that fraud is profitable. So fraud and deception are the same thing," Pavićević said.
He added that in this way the fraud was legalized and in front of the public.
"And you expect from someone who graduated through fraud, that he will be an honest doctor, engineer, professor. How did you push him into the world, into life through fraud? It can't be like that. Some things have to go back to some elementary knowledge" , pointed out Pavićević.
Asked how difficult was the transition from the operating room to politics, Pavićević answered that he has never and will never leave the operating room, because it is his life.
He pointed out that he is in politics due to a combination of circumstances.
"I was happy to respond to that call, a fateful and life-long challenge. I hope that in politics I will be what I was in medicine. To give the best part of myself and contribute to moving some things from a standstill," said Pavićević.
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