Magazinović: Congratulations to the "Sarajevo doctor" on the world peace award

On the occasion of the news that Italian cardiac surgeon Dr. Gino Strada, a great humanitarian and anti-war activist, who highlights his stay in Sarajevo in 1994 at the Koševo hospital in his biography, is the recipient of this year's Sanhak Peace Prize, the president of the Main Board of SDP BiH and Member of the BiH Parliament Saša Magazinović, has spoken out, SDP announced, Patria reports.

"The fact that someone who is a recipient of the Sanhak Peace Prize, whose prize fund is equal to that of the Nobel Prize and which was awarded in Seoul in the presence of representatives of more than 110 countries, highlights his engagement in the war year of '94 at the Koševo hospital in his biography, is an opportunity to congratulate Dr. Gino Strada and draw attention to human rights, solidarity, and peace, for which this great humanitarian advocates around the world and for which he has been awarded the prestigious award.

Dr. Gino Strada is known worldwide for providing medical care and operating on war victims and refugees around the planet for almost 30 years. It was at the end of '94, when his biography mentions his stay at the Koševo hospital in Sarajevo, that he founded the international organization "Emergency," which advocates for free medical treatment for all patients and provides concrete medical services to the most vulnerable around the world.

What makes Dr. Strada recognizable is his insistence that medicine is not and must not be a business, but that it should exclusively focus on people's health. This commitment of his does not end only with the logical message that medicine loses its meaning when it starts dealing with profit, rather than the number of successfully treated patients, but also with concrete activities that confirm it.

His hospital in Sudan, where the most complex heart surgeries are performed free of charge for patients, has a five times lower mortality rate compared to modern clinics in the USA and Europe that perform surgeries of the same complexity. Thanks to his efforts, the governments of 11 African countries have signed a joint Manifesto by which, among other things, they commit to efforts to provide free healthcare to their citizens and to cooperate with each other.

People like Dr. Gino Strada are shining examples that in today's era of brutal capitalism, when everything, including medicine, is viewed exclusively as a business, and when the lack of solidarity with sick and otherwise endangered people is more than noticeable, there are those who, through their actions and their example, can be a guide for all of us in which direction we should all move together. The least this man deserves from Sarajevo is congratulations.