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21 08 2008 This Thursday’s the "Life in Kosovo" show asked the question of how well Kosovo is equipped to deal with emergencies.
Does Kosovo have the capacity to deal with natural
disasters such as a huge fire or an earthquake? Can its emergency services deal
with sudden unforeseen health hazards? Could the institutions cope with such a
situation? Does Kosovo have a plan for an emergency reaction? Who in government
deals with these issues?
To discuss these issues and more, in the studio
were:
Bislim Zyrapi – Head of Department for Emergency and
Risk Management in the Ministry of Internal
Affairs;
Pashk Buzhala –Emergency Department, Ministry of
Health;
Basri Lenjani – Director of the Emergency Centre in
Kosovo;
Lumturije Behrami – Professor of Civil Defence and
Security;
Florian Qehaja – Kosovar Center for Security Studies and Political
Risk;
The debate started with a report from BIRN journalist
Bekim Salihu. The report revealed the problems in the village of Malisheva , where villagers are confronted
with an epidemic of ticks every year and the government has not taken any steps
to address the situation.
After the report Buzhala kicked the debate off. He said
that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is dealing with and preventing the further
spread of ticks.
“It is not just Malisheva which has these kinds of
symptoms,” he said, adding that part of the problem is that at times people
cannot recognise the symptoms of the diseases that ticks carry and that is why
it can be fatal.
Lenjani reacted saying that Kosovo does not have the
institutions and services capable of dealing with this invasion of ticks. “When
patients come, we must put them in the emergency room, even though this should
be cured in an infection room,” he said.
He said that Kosovo does not have the conditions in
emergency clinics and no one cares about it.
``Personally, I send a letter to
the Ministry of Health and I never had any answer to my questions,’’ he
said.
Buzhala interrupted Lenjani’s explanation and said that
emergency clinics do react to such emergency situations. ``In the emergency
clinics there is a lot of equipment to deal with such cases,’’ he said.
Zyrapi pointed out that in Kosovo the government is not
only confronted with the problems in the Pristina emergency clinic. “Something
can always happen in every emergency clinic in Kosovo,” Zyrapi said, adding that
that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is doing the best it can.
Behrami said that all institutions are throwing the ball
of responsibility from one court to another.
“Everyone can see in what kind of a
position we would be if something fatal were to happen,” she said. “Kosovo
doesn’t have the capacity to undertake serious steps if an earthquake were to
hit us,” she stressed.
Buzhala interrupted Behrami adding that Kosovo does have
a plan for emergency situations.
Adding to this Qehaja said that though there may be a
plan, there is no strategy. “It is rather like saying that a law exists but it
has not been implemented”, he pointed.
Buzhala added that no one from the cities in Kosovo
would be able to cope if a catastrophe were to happen. “We do not have the
techniques or the equipment,” he said, adding that after the war a lot of donors
contributed expertise to this issue, but Kosovo always ended up with second hand
techniques and equipment.
During the show, a report by BIRN Kosovo journalist Jeta
Abazi was shown, portraying the capacity of firemen in Kosovo, and the problems
that they have had in the town of Lipjan, where there are only two fire trucks
and where the firemen survive on a small salary.
After the report, Qehaja said that the money that the
government has put aside from emergency situations in all departments has not
been managed well.
Lenjani added that it is time to see a realistic way
out. “I have one ambulance in my emergency clinic,” he stressed, “How can I
react to the situation if there are more than four or five accidents per
day?’’
Qehaja said that everyone recognises that Kosovo’s
budget is limited, but the emergency departments lack initiative as well.
“There are always donors that can help us in this
issue,” he said. “We could have more than one ambulance if we wanted that,” he
added.
Life in Kosovo is a co-production between Kosovo Public
Television, RTK and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN. It is
broadcast every Thursday, starting at 20:20.
At the beginning of 2010 BIRN network published Digging Deeper - A Guide for Investigative Journalists in the Balkans, written in cooperation with Sheila Coronel, Director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and professor of professional practice at Columbia University, New York.
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