Asst. Ph.D. Alen Pilav, acting of the general director of the Clinical Centre University Sarajevo (KCUS) announced about the ban on visits to KCUS and explained how he allowed them again.
“Even before my appointment as acting general director, I was aware of citizens’ objections to the ban on visits to hospitalized patients at KCUS. This is precisely why I started the procedure for the approval of visits immediately after my appointment. I do not want to go into questioning the justification of the previous ban on visits, but I believe that it is not right for KCUS to be the only hospital that does not approve visits. This was even the duty of KCUS in accordance with the Law on the Rights, Obligations and Responsibilities of Patients, which prescribes that patients during their stay in a stationary health institution have the right to receive visits according to house rules health facilities,” he said.
He stated that citizens will be able to visit patients again starting today.
“After we followed all the procedures and saw that there were no obstacles, we decided to restore the possibility of visits. It is therefore a great pleasure for me to inform the citizens that from Monday they can visit family members and friends who are in the KCUS. On the website of the KCUS – and you will find all the details related to the dates of visits, the maximum number of visitors, the time of stay and other procedures that visitors must follow”.
For now, he says, the visits will last an hour.
“For the time being, the visits will take place from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., but we are already working on modernizing the regulation of visits based on the systems that are successfully applied in other clinical centers around the world, which facilitate visits for both patients and for employees and visitors,” he said.
According to his opinion, patients in hospitals need contact with relatives for easier recovery.
“In accordance with modern trends in medicine, by allowing visits to hospitalized patients, we want to enable a better recovery, but also to make the stay in the hospital as pleasant as possible. Direct contact with family and friends has a positive effect on the healing process itself, because it gives patients additional strength and a motive for faster healing. Visits are good not only for patients, but also for their families, who take care of their health and life,” Pilav said.
Visits to patients in the terminal phase, he says, will not be limited.
“The ban on visits particularly affected seriously ill patients and their relatives. Many of them spent their last days and hours at the KCUS, without the opportunity to see their loved ones and to say goodbye to them. Considering the sensitivity of this category, visits to patients in the terminal phase, they will not be time-limited, but they are only allowed to members of the immediate family”.
He concluded that the main task of KCUS is to be at the service of citizens and “open it up”. “The justification for banning visits cannot be that we do not have a sufficient number of medical staff and persons who maintain hygiene. Savings must not be more important than the well-being of patients. In this way, we are additionally opening KCUS, because our task is to be at the service of citizens, not to we are hiding from them and we are closing in,” said the press release of the acting general director of KCUS.
