"You should wash your hands before and after eating, don't let your mother warn you about that. Dirty hands contaminate the food, and thus the disease is introduced into the body."
Generations grew up with these verses by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj. Through the song, the children learned an important lesson about the importance of personal hygiene.
In 2020, in Montenegro, as well as around the world before that, the coronavirus pandemic was declared. That hands must be clean is a lesson that had to be repeated over and over again. "Distance, hands, mask", became Uncle Jova's verse of some new children and new times.
Vilnerina Ramčilović, specialist in social medicine and director of the Center for Health Promotion at the Institute for Public Health, describes that time as a period of crisis communication for everyone in the Montenegrin health system.
People eagerly awaited information from health representatives at the highest level, which was made possible by regular press conferences and news broadcasts, because the health of citizens comes first. This built trust between citizens and healthcare institutions, which was very important in those moments, when the whole world was facing numerous challenges.
The coronavirus epidemic is one in a sea of topics that employees of IJZ and healthcare in general deal with. For Vilnerina, it is also a significant example that shows how important it is for the public to hear the voices of the profession and science.
"To hear what science has to say," she affirms.
When the profession and science speak, it can sometimes be incomprehensible to the general population. For messages to be heard and understood, they must be clearly communicated. Effective communication, according to research, is the key to the success of many public health interventions and strengthening citizens' trust in science and the health system. That is why, with the support of the EU and UNICEF, trainings for health workers in this field were organized. Vilnerina is a student of one of them.
She is satisfied because at the workshops they did not just listen, but also actively participated in the work, through practical examples.
"What is constantly in my head is the importance of conveying an assertive, clear, informative message that is significant for the target group I am addressing", she conveys some impressions from the training.
For a specialist in social medicine, health promotion is part of everyday life.
Health promotion is the process of empowering people to increase control over their health and to improve it.
There are many examples in practice, and unfortunately, after the covid pandemic, there are more and more public health priorities that "compete" with each other in terms of their importance.
Thus, for example, immunizations have come into the public's focus as the most important preventive public health intervention, and they are gaining importance even these days, after several cases of whooping cough were registered in November.
Whooping cough is a highly infectious bacterial disease, for the prevention of which, according to the IJZ, vaccination is the most effective and the only effective preventive measure.
However, the problem of malignancy and all the impacts that the pandemic had on screening programs and all preventive activities related to malignant diseases are often forgotten.
"Breast cancer is the leading localization of newly registered malignant tumors in Montenegrin women, where every fourth malignant tumor is detected in a woman in Montenegro - breast cancer. For this reason, the month of October is dedicated to this malignancy, with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of regular preventive examinations, in order to detect breast cancer at an early stage, when the cure is successful in most cases. The UNICEF workshops allowed me to prepare in the best possible way, to feel safer, to understand more clearly the needs of our fellow citizens when it comes to communication and to adjust my communication activities, so that they are more receptive and clearer to everyone. By celebrating 'Pink October', the Institute for Public Health took another significant step towards empowering the community and promoting preventive activities and screening programs, reminding that women should take care of their health throughout the year and regularly go for breast examinations," said the director. Ramčilović Center for Health Promotion.
With the support of the EU and UNICEF, three more trainings for health workers on the "frontline" on interpersonal communication with parents regarding immunization will be held during December, and a smaller number of selected medical experts will also learn about communication in public debates.
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