L. Bokeria: "Milosevic Might Have Lived for Long Years to Come"

Doctors of the Hague tribunal have made gross mistakes in their treatment of Yugoslavia's ex-president Slobodan Milosevic. Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Leo Bokeria, who arrived at the Hague with a team of experts of the A.N. Bakulev Research Center for Cardiovascular Surgery, said last night, after having studied the conclusions of the forensic expert commission, that S. Milosevic might have been saved if appropriate steps had been taken in time.

Why no medical aid has been provided to a patient in a grave condition, that is the question which is being asked by the Russian doctors in the Hague. Academician L. Bokeria noted that "the patient was treated for what has come to the surface, which in this case was arterial hypertension", though the patient – Slobodan Milosevich – "was under observation by Russian doctors since 2003 and they had all the information, including that supplied by his private doctor".

"I wonder why this happened in a country with the highest level of medicine", justly asks the Russian medical star. It might have been "a gross mistake", says L. Bokeria. The Yugoslav leader had lesions of only one artery in two places. "Milosevic might have been cured by means of an operation that is performed today in quite a number of countries of the world. If Milosevic had been admitted to any specialized in-patient hospital, especially such a hospital as ours, he might have had coronography performed and two stunts set in, and he might have stayed alive for long years to come", he said.

Thus the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has got into a very awkward situation, believes L. Bokeria, as, "its doctors, having all the means at their disposal, lost a patient, which has not only greatly damaged the tribunal's prestige, but has put it into a situation of people who failed to give aid to a sick man".