Health institutions in Montenegro lack doctors, and one of them is the Nikšić General Hospital, which lacks psychiatrists, ENT specialists, and pediatricians.
Although doctors have known to wait years to get a specialization, there are no interested people in Nikšić.
"We only have one ENT specialist, one psychiatrist, and three doctors in the pediatrics department, one of whom is on sick leave. When it comes to the shortage of nurses, it is greatest in the Internal Medicine Department and in the operating room. This shortage will soon be overcome by hiring a sufficient number of nurses through a competition for which we are awaiting approval from the Ministry, because these nurses previously had irregular fixed-term contracts," the director of the General Hospital, Dr. Zoran Mrkic.
He pointed out that the problem in the psychiatry department will be solved to some extent, because in a month and a half a doctor from Kotor will start working there, who will stay for at least a year, and they have currently hired a specialist doctor from Cetinje under a contract for additional work.
"Two doctors left the psychiatry department in a short period of time, and then a psychologist, for whom we received unofficial information that he had abused his sick leave and was performing work at another institution, while he had been on sick leave at the hospital for the second month. The aforementioned irregularity was reported to the competent authorities immediately upon learning of it...".
Mrkić emphasizes that none of the doctors from Nikšić, since he became director, have been interested in specialization:
"People have always struggled to get a specialization, and the conditions under which our residents specialize are much better than they were when I was in my specialization, so I was really surprised by the lack of interest."
New equipment
And while they are "struggling" with a shortage of doctors, they can boast of new medical equipment.
"We received a modern Siemens X-ray machine with scopy, which we have been waiting for for three years. Those who work in medicine, and patients who need this service, know how irreplaceable and necessary it is for a hospital like this. For the first time, we also received an osteodensitometer, a device that measures bone density, and which is used by rheumatologists and endocrinologists. We already have interest from other cities, since we do not have a waiting list. The adaptation of the room for the magnet is being prepared. The tender will be announced in the coming days. The loan announcement is also underway and the Ministry of Health will take about 20 million from the European Bank, and will distribute that money to all health institutions in Montenegro. I think we will have about a million and a half from that budget and we have already made a list of the equipment we need. The biggest item on that list is the scanner, because the existing one is already eight years old, it has performed nearly 80.000 examinations and it often malfunctions, so we will not wait for it to completely stop working."
In addition to the scanner, according to the director of the Nikšić General Hospital, they plan to use the aforementioned loan to purchase equipment that has not been used in that health institution so far, which would increase the scope of services provided to patients.
"What we cannot boast about are some inherited things from the past, some bad habits in terms of the patient-doctor relationship and the medical staff within the institution. This is something that will change slowly, but we are working intensively on it. By trying to introduce, as it is unpopularly said, order, we will certainly relax the relationship between people in this way, because they are burdened with some things that are marginal and irrelevant to performing this function everywhere in the world."
Mrkić states that the systematization has been completed and that it is finally known how many employees there are in which department and sector, and what their job is:
"The general hospital has 464 employees - 346 are medical staff and 118 are non-medical staff. There are 73 doctors in total, of which 57 are specialists, 6 are subspecialists, and 16 are doctors in training. We have one pharmacist, one psychologist and one social worker, and 14 physiotherapists. There are 256 nurses and technicians, of which 228 are nurses and technicians, 24 are laboratory technicians, and 4 are pharmaceutical technicians."
They managed to return three out of seven apartments.
Shortly after taking office, Mrkić informed the public that the Hospital was the owner of seven apartments that no one had taken care of. So far, they have managed to "return" three apartments, one of which will be given to a doctor from Kotor, and he says he hopes that the other apartments will be available again very soon.
"I formed a commission tasked with locating the aforementioned apartments and establishing the factual situation. The commission submitted a report that three apartments were unoccupied, while one was given to a former employee for temporary use several decades ago. Someone lives in it, but not the employee, so there is an assumption that the apartment was rented out... The commission suggested that we contact the relatives of the persons who lived in the three apartments in question, which are now empty, which we did. The relatives came the same day and returned the keys, and after obtaining approval from the Ministry of Health, we will try to adapt these apartments and make them available for use by doctors who are employed at the hospital from neighboring countries."
In this way, according to Mrkić, the Hospital will save money, because it annually allocated more than 15.000 euros for apartment accommodation for doctors.
Increased number of patients with no one to care for
When it comes to the number of patients, according to Mrkić, it is constant, and recently there has been a noticeable increase in the number of patients who have no one to take care of them:
"These are a small number of patients who do not have their own family, so we solve this together with the Social Service. But the problem we face is not a small number of patients who cannot take care of themselves, and who have their own family who are not currently in the country, but are working somewhere abroad, and then our formal and legal possibilities to use the Social Service as an assistant are difficult."
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