Division among Serbs affects hospital use

The hospital built for Serbs stands largely unused. The problem? Western assistance helped to build it.

By RICHARD MERTENS

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 4, 2000

GRACANICA, Yugoslavia -- Sasa Ivic is an anesthesiologist's assistant at a new hospital that the United Nations recently opened in this Serb enclave in central Kosovo. The trouble is, the hospital has no anesthesiologist to assist.

The hospital's operating room, with its gleaming tiles and shiny new machinery, sits dark and unused. There is a delivery room -- but no obstetrician. In fact, because of a split between moderate Serbs and the authorities in Belgrade, the hospital has only three doctors on staff, barely enough to stay open.

"We have patients," Ivic said, "but we don't have doctors."

And not that many patients, either. On a recent morning, only two of the hospital's 16 beds were being used, one by a 53-year-old woman who had suffered a stroke two days earlier. The rest of the staff -- including perhaps a dozen nurses and technicians -- sat around talking and drinking coffee. There was little else to do.

The hospital in Gracanica was meant to be more. Financed by the Greek government and the charity Doctors of the World, it was meant to be part of a larger effort by Western officials to improve life for the Serbs who have not fled Kosovo and to preserve what remains of the province's ethnic mix. Since NATO-led troops occupied Kosovo last year, half of the province's 200,000 Serbs have fled, most of them to Serbia proper. Of the 100,000 or so who remain, many of them have retreated into all-Serb enclaves, where NATO-led peacekeeping troops give them 24-hour protection.

But protection is not enough. The Serbs also need schooling, jobs and access to markets and medical care. In normal times, people from Gracanica with serious medical problems would go to the state hospital in Pristina, just 10 minutes away. But since last summer, Serbs have no longer been welcome there, either as patients or staff. It is dangerous for them even to attempt the trip. For serious problems they have had to go to a Russian military hospital about 15 minutes away or go outside Kosovo to Nis or Belgrade.

The new hospital was meant to satisfy this need. But no sooner did it open than it was caught up in a different conflict than the usual one between Serbs and ethnic Albanians. This one was between the Serbs themselves. Serb doctors from Kosovo who might have worked in the new hospital were warned by Yugoslav authorities not to. If they did, they were told, they would lose their pensions and health insurance. The hospital's medical director, Dr. Rada Trajkovic, says the doctors were intimidated in other ways as well. It worked.

"They all want to work here," she said. "They call me almost every day. But the regime is threatening them."

The dispute over the Gracanica hospital reflects the growing divisions among Serbs in Kosovo. On one side are moderate Serbs, including the leader of the Serb Orthodox Church in Kosovo, Bishop Artemije, who have shown a willingness to cooperate with Western officials. They have been harshly critical of the West for failing to protect the Kosovo Serbs. But they think that working with West is the only way to improve the lives of their people.

On the other side is Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. His army and police were banished from Kosovo last June, but his regime continues to exert influence from afar, undermining not only Western efforts in Kosovo but also the efforts of moderate leaders. American and NATO officials accused the Yugoslav president of using his police to stir up trouble in Mitrovica, the town in northern Kosovo that is split along ethnic lines, but in fact his influence reaches almost everywhere Serbs still live in Kosovo.

Kosovo Serbs read Yugoslav state newspapers and watch state television, which expose them to a flood of anti-Western propaganda. Because Kosovo remains officially a province of Serbia, they also receive benefits of the Yugoslav state, health insurance and pensions among them. The benefits are not generous: A typical pension amounts to about $25 a month. But the prospect of losing even such modest help, and of defying the Yugoslav state, made Todorka Slavkovic, a 29-year-old nurse, think twice before she went to work at the Gracanica hospital.

"We're all afraid," she said. "But we want to work for our people."

Moderate Serbs also struggling against Serb leaders who have emerged in northern Kosovo. Serbs there can travel easily to Serbia proper and have less to gain by cooperating with the West. Their leaders have resisted Western efforts to integrate northern Kosovo with the rest of the province and are scornful of the moderate Serbs, including the Orthodox Church. "The church doesn't even have the support of its own people," said Oliver Ivanovic, a leader of the Serb National Council in Mitrovica.

The split among the Serbs became wider and nastier last month when Bishop Artemije and other moderates agreed to take part in a U.N. scheme to share power with local officials. After the agreement, a mob of angry Serbs, some of them armed with pitchforks, attacked the 14-century monastery in Gracanica where Bishop Artemije makes his headquarters. Swedish soldiers guarding the monastery fought off the attackers. Later, the church blamed extremists sympathetic to Milosevic. But the incident reflected a deeper lack of support for the moderates and for their policy of engagement.

"We don't have any political influence," Artemije lamented at a recent meeting of clergy from Kosovo and Bosnia. Sasa Ivic agrees. "The people are 90 percent with the government of Serbia."

Western officials in Kosovo have had little success in promoting the moderate Serb leadership, but they are increasing their efforts. They have begun to import opposition newspapers into Serb enclaves and are helping Serbs in Gracanica start a radio station that will broadcast throughout the province.

"This is a really important struggle," said the Rev. Sava Janjic, a spokesman for Bishop Artemije. "It's a struggle for truth, a struggle for the souls of people who are in danger of being taken in by a very brutal regime, which is using people for its political purposes."

The West is also trying to show ordinary Serbs that cooperation yields better results than defiance. It has been unable to give Serbs what they desire most, which is the freedom to move safely outside their enclaves. Instead, it is providing them with more services, including buses that travel among the enclaves. It is trying to improve Serb education.

The Gracanica hospital is another part of this effort. Last year, Western officials in Kosovo discouraged separate Serb institutions. At the time, they were still insisting on multi-ethnic schools, clinics, hospitals and workplaces. But these efforts failed, often because ethnic Albanians refused to go along. Officials gradually accepted segregation as the only possible arrangement.

As the trouble over the hospital shows, however, even this policy is fraught with difficulty. Dr. Trajkovic says she is trying to solve the staff problem by importing doctors from other parts of the former Yugoslavia, including Montenegro and Bosnia, "until the blackmailing from Belgrade ends." Already, she says, more and more patients are coming to the hospital, most of them with minor complaints.

For now, at least, Milosevic seems to have the upper hand in Gracanica. The local health clinic is run by doctors still loyal to his regime. It is a dingy, run-down building about a quarter-mile from the hospital, with none of the hospital's shine and splendor. But it is more than amply staffed, and on a recent morning it was busy with local Serbs coming to see a doctor.

"A hospital is a good idea, for the Serbian people and no one else," said Dr. Mice Popovic sternly. "But it should work under the Serbian government and not under the U.N."

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