Medical conference opens
dialogue
for Kosovar, Serb doctors
By Rick Emert, Kosovo
bureau
CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo — Twenty-three Kosovar doctors and other medical
professionals, including four Serbs, attended a medical conference hosted Friday by Task
Force Medical Falcon at Camp Bondsteel.
The four-hour conference gave Task Force Medical Falcon doctors the chance to share
ideas on certain types of medical treatments.
More importantly, the conference was a rare chance for ethnic Albanian and Serb doctors
to get together and voice the challenges they face in providing health care at clinics,
called health houses, in their respective towns and cities.
"We recognize that Kosovo is a land that suffers from serious political
differences," said Col. Dean Sienko, Task Force Medical Falcon commander, as he
addressed the 23 visiting doctors and nurses. "But as has been demonstrated in many
parts of the world, health care leaders can overcome these differences for the greater
moral good of health for all."
During a break for lunch, Zoran Staletovic, a Serb surgeon from Strpce, said he
appreciates the help from KFOR and Task Force Medical Falcon, but that it just isn’t
enough.
"The help from KFOR is mostly symbolic," Staletovic said through a
translator. "It’s not on a regular basis."
Ramadan Halimi, an ethnic Albanian doctor from Vitina, agreed.
"In Vitina, we have 60,000 citizens, and the supplies from KFOR and
[nongovernmental organizations] just are not enough to cover all of the inhabitants,"
Halimi said through a translator. "Our own budget is not enough."
For many of these doctors, and their patients, hassles with health insurance providers
would be a welcome relief. As it is now, they are struggling simply to provide any health
care for their patients.
"It will be a long period of time before the [health care] system is
standardized," Halimi said.
Until then, health houses will rely on NGOs and KFOR for needed supplies.
Sienko said KFOR is doing what it can.
"We lend our expertise [on forms of medical treatment] and work with local
physicians in the health houses," Sienko said. "We conduct training and provide
equipment; we do all we can to assist them in areas where they have particular
needs."
"One of our doctors, at least once a week, performs surgery with doctors at the
Ferizaj hospital," said Col. Joyce Humphrey, the Task Force Medical Falcon hospital
commander. "We do a lot of teaching of the basics on one nurse to one nurse
basis."
Task Force Medical Falcon personnel conduct medical civilian assistance visits to
different cities several times a week.
Additionally, the medical task force gets a chunk of Task Force Falcon’s quarterly
$350,000 humanitarian assistance budget. With those funds, Task Force Medical Falcon has
provided critically needed medical equipment to health houses in Kosovo, including
sterilizers, lab equipment, EKGs, ultrasound machines and hospital beds, said Lt. Col.
Ronald L. Sumner, the Civil Affairs officer for Task Force Medical Falcon.
But for Serbs in Strpce, Staletovic said, the equipment shortage is not the most
pressing issue.
"We have much need for prescription medications," Staletovic said. "We
have huge transportation problems in getting patients to health houses. We rely on Camp
Bondsteel and the Polish/Ukraine Battalion for this."
Staletovic, attending the conference for the first time along with three of his
assistants, had a KFOR escort from Strpce to Camp Bondsteel.
But there is hope in an end to the prescription medication problem in the form of KFK,
a local organization that Staletovic said gets medications from international
organizations and distributes them to health houses.
And the Task Force Medical Falcon conferences will continue on the last Friday of each
month. Visiting doctors are looking ahead to future conferences when they requested
training in specific areas, including preventive medicine, environmental issues like water
treatment and sanitation, family care medicine, emergency trauma care and maternity care,
Sumner said.
While they benefit from the training and discussions on the future of health care in
Kosovo, these doctors from all different regions in Kosovo get something else out of the
conferences.
"This conference helps bring [Serbs and ethnic Albanians] together," said
Riza Hoda, a doctor from Kamenica. "In only this kind of meeting can we sit at the
same table across from each other. In this area, only KFOR can help us."
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