Concern in Montenegro over Number of Health Workers Self-Isolating

Medical workers in Montenegrin clinical centre. Photo: BIRN/Samir Kajosevic

Boban Mugosa denied the numbers - 237 medical workers self-isolating and 10 infected - were due to workplace exposure to COVID-19 or a lack of equipment, but because of "contacts at home."

"We need to prevent infection among everyone, especially among healthcare professionals," he told a news conference.

But Ljiljana Krivokapic of the Independent Healthcare Union in Montenegro said more needed to be done to protect front line health workers.

"If we do not have complete protection it is enough for one infected patient to come and everyone has to go into self-isolation," Krivokapic told BIRN. "This has already happened in some cities and some of our colleagues will have to stay at home."

"At this point we have organized ourselves and people are mobile in case we need to replace our quarantined colleagues," Krivokapic added. "We tried to be prepared for situations like this."

Montenegro, an Adriatic country of some 630,000 people, has registered 105 cases of COVID-19.

On Saturday, local media reported that 55 doctors and nurses in the coastal town of Bar were in self-isolation after a doctor was confirmed to have caught the novel coronavirus. Replacements were sent from the capital, Podgorica.

On March 25, the health centre in the town of Andijevica in eastern Montenegro was closed and staff placed in isolation following contact with an infected person. In Tuzi in the south, employees of the local medical centre have joined the rest of the town in quarantine.

Last week, the Union of Medical Doctors called on Montenegrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic to ensure all medical staff members have protective equipment and to submit a protocol on how...