Starting today, the first of this year’s six groups of 120 Norwegian patients will be staying at the “Simo Milošević” Institute.
The Director of Marketing and Sales at the Institute, Nikola Mračević, said that there will be as many patients in the second group as well, in the next two it is planned to be 80, and in the last two there will be 120 Norwegians each.
Seven groups were expected, within the state program, with over 700 patients, and the reduced volume was due to Norway’s smaller fund for the treatment of its citizens abroad. “This year there are fewer groups, because their state provided a smaller budget.” He will stay in rehabilitation for 28 days and we will try as always and as we do to all patients to provide everything we can,” Mračević said.
If the Norwegian patients were not well, if they did not benefit from the therapies, if they did not perceive the Institute, Herceg Novi and Montenegro as a second home, they would not have come for 47 years for rehabilitation. They are satisfied with the medical staff and the individual approach, based on the principle of one therapist, one patient, which is not applied anywhere in Europe.
They recover every time after rehabilitation in Igalo, so many return every, or every second or third year. The institute is the only institution from a country outside the European Union (EU), which competed in the last tender for the four-year rehabilitation program for Norwegian patients, and was again highly ranked.
The Norwegian state program began in 1976 in the old building of the Institute, and continued in 1986 in the Second Phase. There were only minor interruptions in the 1990s and during the two years of the pandemic. So far, more than 50,000 patients from this Scandinavian country have been rehabilitated at the Igalo Institute.
Today, the First Phase is not yet open, because there are no conditions, there are not enough seasoners, and the Institute’s account is still blocked. With the Norwegians, there will be over 500 patients in the Second Phase. The Norwegians, like all patients, always knew that they value the most valuable thing that the Institute has – the staff.
This year, the provision of services is a special challenge for the employees of the Institute, because they have not yet received a single salary for this year. For them, Labor Day May 1st was therefore a sign of protest and for the umpteenth time sent clear requests to the Government to urgently find a way to pay their wages guaranteed by law.
