prijava
SARAJEVO, April 15 (FENA) - FBiH Health Minister Vjekoslav Mandić said in Sarajevo today that according to the available information, more than 500 medical staff members have been tested for coronavirus, and that they will continue testing all those who need to be tested and who are the most vulnerable and in direct contact with the infected.
Responding to a journalist's question about how many tests are currently being disbanded, he said they have sufficient numbers of tests for wide-range testing, but stressed that "medical professionals would be the ones to decide when and how many people would be tested."
"If medical professionals decide, then more will be tested, and if doctors determine that a smaller number should be tested, then it will be so. We have enough tests in any case," said Mandić.
Asked whether measures are being considered to lift the ban on the work of private dental and orthodontic clinics in the Federation of BiH, Mandić said that they were not considering such measures for the time being, "because we believe that the infection is still at the stage where there is concern about local transmission and exponential spread of disease".
Commenting on the threat of disruption of the health care system due to a large number of health care workers on sick leave, as the KCUS director, Dr. Izetbegović warned, he said that they did not have this information, that no one had contacted them on the matter and that there was no threat to the health care system.
Asked how much the health care system, or the budget, is at a loss because of medical workers who are on sick leave, Mandić said that the first 42 days of sick leave are at the expense of the employer, while the prolonged sick leave under the same diagnosis is at the expense of health insurance.
"I think that the budget will not be at a loss, but if this situation continues, the problem will be with the provision of health service to the population. I think that we are not at that stage at the moment that the provision of health care service has been called into question," Mandić said.
He added that he did not have data for the entire Federation of BiH on the number of medical workers on sick leave, nor did anyone provide such information at this stage.
Asked by a journalist how many ventilators the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has at the moment, Minister Mandić replied that the number is changing because donations have been coming.
"I think we have 260 ventilators at the moment. But once again, I would like to urge that ventilators are there for the most severely ill people. Our solution is to prevent people from getting sick. When the most serious form of the disease occurs, then neither the ventilator nor anything else helps because then it is impossible to exchange oxygen at the level of the alveoli and then, unfortunately, we have a fatal outcome," explained Minister Mandić.
Asked if health care sector workers in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina would receive bonuses or their salaries increased, similar to what was announced in the RS, he replied that he would be happy if he could confirm such news.
"We have not thought about it yet, but I will try to get this issue on the agenda so that we can increase income and pay bonuses to health professionals," Mandić replied.
Asked how much money the Health Insurance Institute will pay to institutions that perform the Covid-19 testing per test, or what the cost of the lab service is, he said that tests are now being done by three clinical centers - Tuzla, Sarajevo and Mostar.
"They do their regular job, so the price for an individual test has not been determined. The tests were secured and paid for by the FBiH Government," concluded Minister Mandić.
(FENA) S. R.
