Kosevo Hospital Staff, Bosnia and Hercegovina

Throughout its history Sarajevo has been a meeting place of different roads, customs, cultures, and religions. "The Pearl of Europe", it flourished after the Second World War experiencing its full splendour as the host of the Winter Olympics in 1984. Before the war Kosevo Hospital, in Sarajevo, was the leading educational, diagnostic and therapeutic institution in Bosnia-Herzegovina. With its 41 clinics and institutes, 2,100 beds, modern diagnostics and therapy, Kosevo Hospital was a modern, successful health and university institution.

In 1992 tragedy struck when war commenced. At the very beginning of the war, the Children's Clinic, the Gynaecological Clinic, the Maternity Clinic, the Vascular Clinic, and the Clinic for Rehabilitation and Paraplegia, were totally destroyed. Kosevo Hospital, which is only 600 metres from enemy lines, continued to work under impossible conditions. There was no electricity, water, or gas, and only minimal amounts of medical materials and medicines. Staff of the hospital worked and treated thousands and thousands of wounded and sick in the besieged city. The hospital was constantly under artillery fire receiving 1,470 hits, of which 687 landed directly on clinics and institutes. Dozens of patients and our colleagues were killed or wounded in hospital beds, in the hospital compound, or while on duty. With about 85 surgeons we treated more than 21,000 wounded, and performed over 25,500 major operations. Physicians and other medical staff diagnosed and treated over 70,000 other patients.

How, have we succeeded in working and surviving without electricity, gas, water, materials and medicines? How did we, exposed to the blockade and enemy attacks, maintain the universal principles of the Hippocratic oath and offer help to everyone, including enemy soldiers?

Simply put, Kosevo Hospital had to succeed. If we had not succeeded in organising the work and showing that one can work even under impossible conditions, what would have happened to the thousands of wounded civilians and the sick? We were simply doomed to success.

We have succeeded thanks to the engagement of our people, thanks to a wish to help, thanks to the courage and devotion of the medical staff, thanks to respect for human rights, thanks to our efforts to preserve a multi-ethnic, and multi-religious community, thanks to the unselfish aid of many humanitarian and other organisations from the whole world.

Unfortunately, the war in Bosnia continues. Sarajevo is still under a blockade, it has been encircled for 40 months. Already about 1,300,000 (yes, you read correctly, one million and three hundred thousand) various shells have hit the city. Civilians are still dying on its streets and squares. We are still struggling to help and save the wounded and sick.

But fortunately, we know we are not alone. We have friends all over the world and we know that all those who help us now will one day be proud of the help they have given us.