UNMIK ON AIR

14 May 2003

Serb Baby Born In Prishtina Hospital

(Zoran Culafic)

Hello and welcome to UNMIK ON AIR with Eranda Bobaj and Martin Redi

Four years after the conflict, Kosovo’s Albanian majority and Serb minority still live in an atmosphere of deep distrust and suspicion. Their lives continue to run on parallel lines, living beside and not with the other. Apart from the political aspects, the ongoing standoff creates a lot of headaches in everyday life, for both communities.

Which is why the birth of a Serb baby in a Prishtina hospital last week was greeted with joy – not just the natural delight in the entry of a new being into the world, but a sign that inter-ethnic cooperation is possible and is happening.

Jelena Lazic, a woman in her early twenties, lives in Pasjane village near Gnjilane/Gjilan. She was expecting to give birth in early May and planned to travel to Vranje, a town in south Serbia, a few days in advance. But, as it happens so often, life tends to take its own course sometimes.

And Jelena’s baby decided to announce its arrival when she was still in kosovo. But when she arrived at the Serb hospital in Gracanica, doctors found her baby was underdeveloped and that her life could be in danger if she gave birth in that hospital, which didn’t have the necessary equipment.

Jelena’s only hope was to give birth in the hospital in Pristina. The important thing, she says is that everything went smoothly and that both she and baby are well.

Jelena Lazic: It was urgent and we did not know where to go. First we wanted to go to Vranje but instead we decided to go to Gracanica. They accepted me in Gracanica, but it was very risky, I was told, and thus they sent me to Pristina. Here they received me well, I was frightened for the baby because in Gracanica they told me she was losing control and that her heart was stopping, but here, after I gave birth; they said the baby was small, just 1.800 kg. But OK.

Dr. Lumnie Syla was visibly proud when he told us that Jelena is doing just fine and the baby too is improving by the day.

Dr. Lumnie Syla: The patient Jelena came here on the 6th of May, 2003, she gave birth prematurely, she was admitted to the intensive care unit and has been treated like all the other patients in our clinic. The baby is now doing fine. In the beginning, the baby’s condition was worrying, and we had to keep her under an oxygen tent until her situation improved. She is now in an incubator due to the premature birth and the low weight. But she is all right now. She is breastfeeding. Everything is fine.

Some 35 to 40 babies are born each day in the clinic, the majority to K-Albanian women from the Pristina region. But head nurse, Sadije Prenici told us that this is not the first case of a Serb woman giving birth in Pristina since the conflict ended.

Sadije Prenici: It is not the first time since the war ended that patients from other nationalities have given birth in our hospital. As far as I can recall, there have been around ten or more cases up to now. And I suggest you ask the mother herself about her feelings in being here and in our clinic, we have never discriminated against patients, not now nor before the war nor even before the 90s. Everyone is treated in the same way; no matter whether she comes from Belgrade, from Raska, from Prizren or from Pristina. For us every patient is a patient.

Jelena has not problems about the way she was received in the Prishtina hospital and is grateful for the excellent treatment she received. The medical personnel, especially, she stresses, all of them K-Albanians, have been very nice with her, even though she does not speak or understand Albanian.

Jelena Lazic: We communicate somehow. They speak Serbian, I do not speak Albanian at all, but it is good. Everything is super. I’m satisfied here; everyone is good to me, and the nurses, the doctors and those women lying here in the room with me. I have no words to describe my feelings. All of them are indeed very good, I’m not frightened at all. Actually I was not afraid for myself even before, but for my baby’s health. I really have no words to say how good things have been; everything is really good.

Jelena Lazic: I’m happy, every mother is happy, that is normal. First of all, I’m happy that she is alive; that is the first thing, and everything else is secondary.

What can be more innocent than a newborn baby? And what could be a more fitting “welcome into our world present” for little Cristina and all the other babies being born today than a Kosovo free of ethnic hatred and distrust?

And that does it for this edition of UNMIK ON AIR. Thanks for listening.