Death of health workers highlighted

BELGRADE: Hundreds of people observed a minute’s silence in front of Serbia’s government building yesterday to pay their respects to doctors and nurses killed by Covid19 and to demand more be done to protect health workers.

People placed white roses at the entrance to the building and lit candles.

Of the 4245 people who have died in Serbia from Covid19, about 2.5% or 105 were doctors, according to official figures.

The Union of Doctors and Pharmacists, which organised the protest, said the death toll among doctors was higher than in other countries in the region.

‘‘For a small country such as Serbia, this is a huge number of people we have lost because of bad organisation,’’ Ferenci Tot, a respiratory diseases specialist, who was among the protest organisers, said.

In Croatia, only one doctor has died from Covid19, in Albania 24 doctors have died and in Bosnia 23 doctors, according to local media reports.

Dejan Zujovic, a doctor who has worked in Covid19 red zones in Belgrade, said long working hours and PPE were the main reasons for such a high death rate among doctors.

‘‘People do not go on holidays, they are exhausted and their immunity suffers,’’ he said.

Government officials have said they will investigate the deaths of medical workers but little has been done so far. — Reuters

PHOTO: REUTERS Tribute . . . A woman, during a protest in Belgrade, Serbia, yesterday, lays a flower and pays her respects to medical workers who have died from the Covid19 coronavirus.