In the years marked by UN Sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro, the number of health workers of all types decreased by only 2%. So medical staff was preserved, but the number of patients seeking help in ambulances decreased by 15%, in hospitals 11%, whereas mortality rate has increased by 28%.
Personnel was there, but the basic necessities weren't. Immediate consequences of UN Sanctions on the health of Yugoslavs are also visible from other data reported in the Statistical Annual Report of national health and health care within Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, which was promoted yesterday in the Federal Agency for Health Protection and Improvement. For example -- in the three most critical years (1992, 1993, 1994) there were 12,000 less births than usual, but 5,000 more died than before the Sanctions. Infant mortality has jumped from 20 in 1,000 to 23 in 1,000. Food intake -- numerically speaking -- dropped from 3,160 kilocalories in 1991 to much more modest 2,800 three years later.
Infectious diseases almost doubled (126 vs. 220), and in 1992 there were TB death cases, murder rate jumped 45% and suicide about 7%.
Diseases of the organs, whose cause is assumed to be psychological (increased blood pressure, angina pectoris, psychosis) are on top of the list of causes of death, and increase in typical organ diseases increased as well: intestines cancer by 13%, breast cancer by 10%, TB by 37%, internal bleeding by 25% ...
Economic depression mixed with Sanctions in part has caused mortality rates from the heaviest chronic conditions to increase: senility by 492%, hypertensive heart disease by 429%, strokes by 174%, diabetes by 156%.
Experts are of the opinion that after the immediate, we should also witness the prolonged effect of UN Sanctions on health in FR Yugoslavia. Federal Agency for Health Protection and Improvement has promised to follow and report on the trends, up until the indicators drop to the level of early nineties.
D.V.