There are several various investigations into the circumstances of the medical care (or lack thereof) he received prior to his passing, as we already reported. Yesterday, index.hr made public the audio recordings of Matijanić’s and his partner’s conversations with the emergency services. The conversations are, obviously, in Croatian and they’re extremely difficult to listen to, as the medical personnel keeps being dismissive and diminishes the seriousness of the situation, even as his limbs turn blue and it’s obvious he’s in a dire situation.
Those recordings caused another wave of backlash against all involved, and a famous Croatian journalist Boris Dežulović, known for his honest and often emotional texts, published a FB status (see below)
He says that it took him three days to publish anything on Matijanić’s death, because he didn’t want to write anything he’d regret afterwards. Then he continues to pose three questions to Vili Beroš:
– if a black limousine with Archbishop Bozanić came to the emergency infectious disease department, and he had all the diagnoses and symptoms like Vlado did, would he also be told that there’s no need for hospitalisation?
– if it were Prime minister Plenković’s wife who called the ER, just once, not twelve times, with all the diagnoses and symptoms like Vlado’s, would they tell her that she didn’t need to be admitted to the hospital and that she should pee in a pot?
– if the ER arrived after three days into a home of any HDZ’s high-level county official with the same diagnoses and symptoms like Vlado’s, would they tell him that they won’t take him to a hospital and that he should just have crackers (note: not a precise translation) and leave?
He goes on to say that those are simple, trivial, “yes or no” questions, and that every possible answer should lead to the resignation of the minister, the Prime minister, the entire government, installation of the Day of Defeat and the Homeland Futileness and calling it quits on the entire meaningless Croatian state.
He finishes his status with a few expletives, whose meanings you’ll easily find here.
And the third incident in yesterday’s very outrage-driven news cycle came courtesy of a Split physician, Hrvoje Tomasović MD, a former politician with extremely right-wing leanings, who also decided to post on his Facebook, insulting the late reporter Matijanić and suggesting that he (Tomasović himself) would’ve helped any journalist “he was friendly with” in that situation, if they’d called him. He added that Matijanić was obviously not even able to get help from “his Yugo doctors”, so the only thing he had left to do was to call – an ambulance. The outrageous post concludes by stating that it’s Matijanić’s “quasi-honest opinions” about not needing unfairly privileged treatment that lead to his death, because there was nobody for him to call who could get him the help he needed. Obviously, there’s at least one doctor in Croatia who believes and is not afraid to publicly write that the emergency services in Croatia are just for those who don’t have friends in high places, and they are themselves to blame when they don’t get the help they need.
Tomasović has since deleted the post, but luckily, there are screenshots:
Many professional medical associations, including the association of the hospital doctors, gave statements condemning Tomasović’s post and the sentiment it carries.
