The regional hospital in the coastal city of Vlora is part of the possible scenarios under the government’s strategy and policies to respond to the COVID-19 by involving regional hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients. “The Ministry of Health strategy includes the initial eight regional hospitals in Durres, Vlora, Korça, Shkodra and Elbasan and the Ministry of Health has acted to boost capacities and create special wards for treatment of COVID-19 patients should the current 550-bed capacity in the four COVID-designated hospitals are overwhelmed,” the Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu while accompanying Prime Minister Edi Rama during his visit to the regional hospital in Vlora that has been totally transformed in terms of its infrastructure and medical equipment.
“The intensive care unit capacities have increased to 14 beds at the regional Vlora hospital as part of the Albanian government investment to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. The new intensive care unit meets best European standards and it is incomparable to what we inherited and what we found in this hospital in 2014 with the only equipment being an ultrasound machine and Imaging equipment that served a large community from Vlora to Saranda,” Manastirliu went on saying.
The intensive care unit is one of the transformed services at the regional hospital and is equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
“It is a modern unit equipped to deliver best quality care. Vlora citizens will no longer have to address to the university hospitals or private clinics for the interventions we perform here,” one of intensive care physicians said.
As part of the strategy, a new 80-bed ward has been fully equipped to treat potential COVID-19 patients and the oxygen lines have been fully installed. “The new ward offers sufficient capacities to provide full treatment for COVID-19 patients needing intensive care treatment and it also features a number of isolation rooms. We have taken all measures to equip intensive care units at regional hospitals with medical equipment, beds, monitors and ventilators and therefore the scenarios we have predicted are in tandem with the capacity building and the government investment as part of its policies to respond to COVID pandemic. The government has supported projects worth EUR 25 million, including this investment in boosting capacities of this intensive care unit that was finalized within a very short time,” the Minister of Health said.
Of the two devices the hospital was equipped with until 2014, 80 monitors, ventilators and other state-of-the-art equipment have been installed ay this hospital. Doctors themselves are to the working conditions just few years ago. “The operating room has been equipped with these medical instruments thanks to the concession contract. I have personally – on my own initiative – checked all the army depots that had taken out the Chinese equipment to donate them. “I have visited all the military depots in Albania that provided tools and beds to the operating room in 2014,” one of the doctors said.
Whoever claims about a lack of strategy and capacities to cope with the pandemic challenge, he or she at least doesn’t know the reality, said Prime Minister Edi Rama in conversation with doctors.
“The overwhelming majority of people who make comments on the hospitals situation today, they either have never seen a hospital before and keep imaging the old hospitals, or they have come across various stories told by certain individuals and they now think that situation in hospitals is catastrophic. And these equipment do not date back to 1914, but to 2014 and this hospital, featuring this state-of-the-art technology and equipment and logistics system designated for treatment of COVID patients is on par with the hospitals in France, Germany, England, Turkey, where some patients fly to after falling prey to the propaganda, was equipped with only two machines until 2014 and you can all imagine how was to be hospitalized here back then. Today it offers a completely different look and a completely different content. It is vitally important for the people to learn it from us that not only we don’t face any capacity shortage for the time being, even though this could have been the case, just like it was with Belgium that two days ago was forced to allow doctors and nurses at a hospital to continue working although they contracted the novel coronavirus. But we don’t face this problem. Around 25% of the capacities at the COVID-designated hospitals, namely COVID 1, 2 and 3 are yet to be occupied, while the COVID 4 hospital has yet to become operational. In the meantime, based on the strategy, the regional hospitals have been well equipped to join the front of the war, if necessary.
What I would like you to bear in mind is the debauched and rampant propaganda over the number of tests. We trust in our Committee of Experts. If we today can afford committing more funds, not only to reimburse that we didn’t actually do until lately because we couldn’t afford it, because we need to plan more and to do a lot of guessing because of the disease’s unpredictability; if we today can afford setting aside a budget for the needy families under social and economic benefit for the entire period of the COVID-19 pandemic, no matter whether they have or they haven’t contracted the virus, so that they cope with the situation and are not forced to look for a job in the informal sector, but best abide by the social distance rules in terms of the access to the situation, where there is a large number of identified cases; if we can afford providing the oil workers what we did yesterday, then everyone should realize that we would have carried out a lot more tests if it was necessary. The Committee of Experts has not recommended it and the today’s debate in the countries where more tests have been conducted is why such an approach has failed to break the infection chain.
I am not saying we have found out that conducting more tests is useless and placing attention to the chain of infections is useless too. But what’s the point when the German Chancellor acknowledges that the infection chain is getting out of control. People will eventually figure out that the outcome is what matters most and the result is shown in the number of the capacities and the facilities. These are the results, whereas everything else is tactics. No matter whether you resort to a defending or an offensive approach in the game, no matter whether you play like Italy or the Brazil national side, the result of the match is what matters most. And the result here is quite simple and pretty clear; the fatality rate is not higher than the rate recorded in other countries, and Albania is a country where the ratio between the infections and the fatalities in the region is very positive. I am not saying we rank first, second or twelfth, because a final conclusion cannot be drawn now, since all the indicators may surge tomorrow.
But it is important for everyone to understand that in these challenging times, Albania, thanks to all these investments and preparations over the years, the COVID-designated hospitals in the country today do not differ from hospitals in other countries in terms of human resources, doctors who have absolutely nothing to do with the kind of the monsters they have been constantly portrayed as people who leave patients to die if they don’t pay in advance, but quite the contrary they are true heroes. Nobody is denying that there are abusing people, but above all there is a Technical Committee of Experts that is living up to the challenge. They are not only very experienced people who have been graduated from international universities, but they also have established continued contacts with their counterparts in the Robert Koch institute ” in Germany and other international leading institutes, they discuss their strategies and exchange their results. It is not an accident that the WHO Director for Southeast Europe praises Albania’s health system for the response to the pandemic. We are not England, but unfortunately for them and fortunately for us, we cannot say: “Take notice how good England is doing and how bad we are doing.” This is not the case. This is a challenge for entire humanity and we are not losing face in this challenge. Just imagine what would have happened should the COVID-19 pandemic was to happen in 2014 or if we were not to carry out all these investments. What would we have been doing? We would have then seen what fatalities among doctors and nurses really mean as doctors would have been equipped with these masks only and nothing else.