Steffen Hudolin, Head of Operations II of the Delegation of the European Union, visited today the Centre for Haemodialysis in Lebane, which opened in April, thanks to support from the European Union. The Centre offers necessary medical care to renal insufficiency patients from Lebane, Bojnik and Medvedja.
Thanks to EU financial support (close to EUR50,000) and substantial co-funding secured by the municipality (EUR35,000), all construction works, electrical installations, ventilation and air conditioning have been completed, and an elevator for the disabled has been installed. With donor’s support, medical equipment has also been procured, including defibrillator, an ECG machine, a patient monitor, eight beds and a dry steriliser, enabling the Centre to work at full capacity.
“This project is an exceptional example of European Union’s contribution to improving the quality of life of people in local communities. Thanks to successful cooperation with the Lebane Municipality and the Ministry of Health, patients from these three municipalities now have adequate medical care here in Lebane and no longer need to travel to Leskovac for dialysis,” said Steffen Hudolin, the EU Delegation Head of Operations II. He described the Lebane dialysis Centre as a sustainable model that can be applied in other communities.
Hudolin reminded that the EU is the largest donor to Serbia, while the Lebane project is only one of 850 projects worth over EUR65 million the EU has supported over the previous decade through various programmes and implemented in partnership with local self-governments.
“Thanks to the new Haemodialysis Centre within the Lebane Health Centre, we can now offer improved services to our patients and take care of 18 patients a week. At the moment, we have eight or nine patients on average who receive medical treatment given by two doctors and six nurses who had undergone six-month training at the Clinical Centre in Nis,” said Vladan Stanojevic the Director of the Health Centre.
During the meeting with assistant mayors, Natasa Stojanovic and Miodrag Zivkovic, the EU Delegation Head of Operations II Steffen Hudolin said that the European Union would continue to support local economic development through the EU PRO programme and its 77 infrastructure projects approved to date with a view to achieving a balanced regional development and better life of people. Hudolin added that new EU PRO CfPs offered the municipalities a chance to submit their high-quality projects.
The European Union supports the activities of the EU PRO, a programme aimed at promoting a more balanced socio-economic development of Serbia, with a total of EUR25 million. The programme seeks to improve competitiveness of micro and small enterprises and the business environment and to advance social cohesion in 99 local self-governments in two Serbian regions: Sumadija and Western Serbia, and Southern and Eastern Serbia. All activities on the ground are implemented by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
