The Torture of a Coronavirus Test in Serbia

My temperature continued to rise, however, so I called the numbers I had found on the official Serbian covid19.rs website. The complaints I had read online were right. It took an hour of calling before I finally got through to the Ministry of Health. I was told just to monitor my temperature.

A high fever woke me in the night, and in the morning I called the numbers again. For two hours. No answer. I went to the local health centre, where they checked my lungs and asked if I knew anyone who had tested positive for coronavirus. I said 'No', and they told me it was nothing serious. Just follow it, they said.

I felt fine for the rest of the day, until the evening when I developed a headache and intense muscle pain.

Once again, the phone numbers were of no use, so I returned to the health centre in the morning. They took a blood sample and, when the results weren't great, I was told to go to the Infectious Diseases Clinic to be tested for COVID-19.

I got there to find more than 40 people ahead of me in the queue. Guarding the clinic were three soldiers cradling automatic rifles.

Shared space

Doctor examining a patient at the Clinical Hospital Center Dr. Dragisa Misovic Dedinje in Belgrade, Serbia. Photo: EPA-EFE/RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT.

I waited four and a half hours to see a doctor. During that time, ambulances brought people in, others were carried out. Positive or negative, I don't know. But we all shared the same space, sometimes close to each other. No one told us how long we should expect to wait or who might have priority, but I figured it was based on the severity of the symptoms.

When I was finally examined, the doctor took note of the fact that my parents had recently arrived from...

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