Construction of Alzheimer’s center to begin in autumn 2019 in Vrsac – First patients to be treated as soon as late 2020

In the autumn of 2020, Vrsac will get its first Alzheimer’s center, also the first such center in Serbia. This facility, which should have 1,000 m2, will have a capacity for 30 people and will be built within the Special Psychiatric Hospital “Dr Slavoljub Bakalovic”.

The beginning of the construction is planned for October 2019, and the said hospital has already obtained the building permit and prepared the final project.

– The rough deadline for the completion of the works is October 2020, and then the equipping of the facility should take another two months – Dr Tatjana Voskresenski, the director of the Special Psychiatric Hospital “Dr Slavoljub Bakalovic”, told our portal.

According to her, in the past year, there has been an increase in the number of registered psychogeriatric patients and the hospital’s capacity consequently needed to increase.

The center, Voskresenski adds, will be built in line with the regulations and the standards for treating patients with dementia, and since the construction of the center is mostly being financed by the EU, the procurement procedure is subject to PRAG rules and instruction and is exempt from the Law on Public Procurement Procedures of the Republic of Serbia.

– The public procurement procedure will be initiated in the upcoming period and will last until the contract on the execution of the works is signed, that is, around three months. After the contract is signed, the contractor and the potential subcontractors will be known – Voskresenski said.

The estimated value of the investment in the facility is EUR 550,000, and it is primarily financed from the European Union’s IPA II fund, through the INTERREG IPA program of cross-border cooperation between Romania and Serbia, as is the entire cross-border project “Aging Healthy and Dementia – A Better Life”, whose total value is EUR 1,175,580.

Over 160,000 Alzheimer’s patients in Serbia

Dementia is one of the most widespread mental illnesses. It is estimated that around 16% of the over-70 population suffers from some form of cognitive damage/disorder.

According to the data of the Public Health Institute of Serbia “Dr Milan Jovanovic Batut”, between 6 and 8% of people older than 65, that, is, around 160,000 people, suffer from Alzheimer’s diseases, whereas each tenth person has some kind of dementia.

After 80, the percentage rises to 30 to 40%.

S. Petrovic