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We can’t have pictures of COVID-19 every day. So instead we’ll try and show the works of Slovenian artists. Today it’s Aleksander Sandi. You can see more of his work here.
Coronavirus case count up by nine, no new fatalities
Two new checkpoints open on border with Italy
Committee hears care homes understaffed, residents very stressed
PPE supplies a major headache for authorities
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Coronavirus case count up by nine, no new fatalities
STA, 21 April - Slovenia's official tally of coronavirus cases rose by nine on Monday, bringing the total number of cases so far confirmed to 1,344. No new fatalities have been reported, leaving the death toll unchanged at 77.
Fresh data from the government show that 87 Covid-19 patients were in hospital on Monday, the lowest number since 24 March. Of those, 25 were treated in intensive care, the lowest figure since 29 March.
Four more people have been discharged from hospital, which means 197 Covid-19 patients have so far returned home from hospital.
A total of 1,174 tests were performed on Monday, more than twice as many as the day before. Hence the increase in the number of new cases compared to five on Sunday.
So far a total of 42,976 tests have been conducted in the country.
Two new checkpoints open on border with Italy
STA, 21 April - While the majority of roads on the border between Slovenia and Italy remain blocked to contain the spread of coronavirus, a new entry point, Predel, opened on Tuesday. Citizens can cross the border using a special certificate. Another border check point will be set up at Rateče on Wednesday.
Both points, facilitating daily migrations between Italy and Slovenia, will be open on all days except Sundays and holidays, from 6am to 9am and from 3pm to 6pm. Outside those time slots, the roads will be blocked.
The authorities have thus responded to the calls for a partial reopening of the border to enable daily cross-border migrations in the north-west of Slovenia, which had been issued by local communities and mayors of both Bovec and Kranjska Gora.
So far, the closest check point between Italy and Slovenia has been Robič, situated more than 30 kilometres from Bovec.
Apart from daily migrants, other citizens in need of taking care of urgent business activities can also cross the border provided they have ID and the relevant permit, which is issued by a local authority.
Committee hears care homes understaffed, residents very stressed
STA, 21 April - The parliamentary Health Committee started debating the situation in nursing homes, which has become very complex in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic. The session, requested by the opposition Left, heard demands for more staff from trade unions and care home organisations before being suspended until tomorrow.
The hours-long discussion heard that care homes are understaffed, while most residents are completely dependent on others' help. The debate also heard that the average age of employees is high and that many residents suffer severe stress because they had been cut off from their families for more than a month.
The understaffing issues became more severe after schools were shut down because the care homes lost students and interns, and volunteers also had to leave due to the shortage of protective equipment. Family members were also of great help, said Biserka Marolt Meden, head of Srebrna Nit, an association promoting dignified old age.
Marolt Meden said that it was up to the Health Ministry to change things. Health Minister Tomaž Gantar admitted that the situation was critical after years of understaffing and lack of funds, but said the ministry was doing everything it could.
He denied allegations that residents do not get appropriate care. "Entire homes cannot be moved to hospitals. Patients who need hospital care are moved," he said in response to the Left's demand that all retirement home residents with Covid-19 be hospitalised.
He was also critical of Tomislav Nemec, the director of the Ljutomer retirement home, which has been hit the worst of all. Gantar said the home did not ban visitors in time, while the nearby Murska Sobota hospital had complained that Nemec was impossible to work with.
Alenka Trop Skaza of the Celje office of the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) said that apart from work overload issues for staff, many residents suffer severe stress because they had not seen their families in weeks.
"The elderly cannot understand why their families do not come and visit," she said, describing a case in which the staff could only just prevent a suicide. Moreover, dementia patients in retirement are in great stress when they need to be swabbed for Covid-19 testing.
The committee will convene again tomorrow afternoon to vote on several resolutions proposed by the Left. Apart from hospitalisation of all Covid-19 patients in retirement homes, the party also wants an increased volume of testing for residents and more funds for retirement homes in general.
Taiwan donates 150,000 masks
STA, 21 April - Taiwan has donated 150,000 surgical masks to Slovenia. The donation was handed over to Slovenia's Civil Protection in Austria's Vienna on Tuesday by Taiwan's representation in Austria. The Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief thanked Taiwan in a tweet.
At the beginning of the month, Taiwan donated ten million protective masks to the countries hit hardest by the global coronavirus pandemic. Soon after, it said it would donate another six million masks to countries in northern, central and southern Europe.
Taiwan's representative in Vienna Vanessa Shih said that the pandemic is affecting all countries in the world and that her country wants to help its friends.
PPE supplies a major headache for authorities
STA, 21 April - The government coronavirus spokesman Jelko Kacin has announced measures to deal with the problem of faulty supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) as criticism is mounting among opposition parties and the public.
The issue was discussed at the coronavirus press briefing on Tuesday following news reports questioning the cost and suitability of supplies, and alleged ties between suppliers and government officials.
Kacin said that the government would provide explanations about concrete measures to prevent errors in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Srečko Šestan, Slovenia's Civil Protection commander, said the equipment that the recipients were unhappy with was being replaced and their complaints were being addressed.
Representatives of the Civil Protection and Disaster Relief Administration and the UKC Ljubljana hospital are involved in the examination of the bids made by PPE suppliers.
They check the goods offered, supply terms and whether the equipment has all the required certificates. If the offered goods are suitable on paper, the bids are referred to the Agency for Commodity Reserves.
The agency is responsible for closing the contracts, price negotiations and for examining the quality and quantity of the supplies. The Civil Protection does not check the goods again but only accepts the supplies and distributes them.
"Once the equipment has been supplied and if the mask offered was FFP2, but what actually arrives is a surgical mask, this is a matter of receipt and complaint," said Šestan.
Most of the problems so far have involved the supplied equipment not complying with what has been ordered or offered.
Such a problem appears to have been in the case of the supply by Public Digital Infrastructure, a company owned by the gaming machines businessman Joc Pečečnik.
The Agency for Commodity Reserves had ordered FFP2-type masks from him, but the newspaper Dnevnik and commercial broadcaster POP TV reported the company actually supplied mislabelled ordinary surgical masks.
Šestan also noted complaints over unsuitable protective gowns supplied to the Šmarje pri Jelšah care home and Izola hospital, and ordinary paper napkin masks turned back by some local communities.
"Today we're being returned a shipment of 2,500 masks from the Begunje psychiatric hospital which we're going to replace," said the official.
If the returned equipment is found to be faulty, it will "probably be destroyed", if it proves suitable, it will be sent back.
A meeting over the issue of complaints was planned today with the Agency for Commodity Reserves, and extra experts are being sought to help them examine hundreds of bids for new supplies.
Police paid a visit to the agency today over suspicion of irregularities regarding PPE deals, explaining they were "checking various pieces of information".
It is not clear however whether the government dismissed the agency's director Anton Zakrajšek, but Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek is to speak about it after the government's session later today.
PPE supplies have been causing problems from the start as a major planned supply failed to arrive, with new incidents reported almost on a daily basis. The opposition has demanded a parliamentary inquiry to look into the matter.
Dnevnik today reported that the contract with Pečečnik's company also included 400,000 protective goggles, thirteen times the number of all health care staff in the country, and at three times the supply price too.
The newspaper Finance raised issue over a EUR 1.8 million contract on the supply for surgical masks with SLA Marketing from the town of Destrnik "which has generated little revenue in recent years, does not even have a publicly available telephone number and whose ownership can be traced via Slovakia to Wyoming, US".
The news portal 24ur reports that while the state has paid Pečečnik 50 cents for a certified surgical mask, it has paid more than 20 cents for a "paper" mask, a reference to the EUR 860,000 paid to two companies for just over a million masks made of a special type of cellulose called air-laid.
The portal reports that the person in charge of sales at one of those, Korez Sorting, is the boss's wife who is a tax debtor and one of the persons accused for a hacking attack on port operator Luka Koper and two other companies two years ago. Two of the defendants pleaded guilty in the case a month ago.
