The “Queen Geraldine” Maternity Hospital, one of the most important healthcare institutions for women and newborns in the country, has been completely transformed thanks to an investment that raises the service offered to the highest European standards.

With modern facilities, advanced technology, and dignified conditions for medical staff and patients, this investment marks another important step in the modernization of the healthcare system.

The maternity hospital, which provides service to more than 20,000 patients a year and is supported by a medical team of the highest professional level, will now have the infrastructure and capacities needed to fulfill its mission of providing advanced and individualized healthcare for women at every stage of their lives, integrating specialized medicine, science, and technology.

The ceremony organized on this occasion was attended by Prime Minister Edi Rama, together with the Minister of Health and Social Protection, Evis Sala.

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Prime Minister Rama: I will spare a long speech for all those standing in front of the sun, because it is very unfair for them to continue standing there, under that sun, and listen to me.

I only want to say that I am extremely pleased that we are at another finish line, after another marathon, where in fact we undertook a necessary, but also fundamental, transformation of this structure. Today, we open the doors of a completely reborn maternity hospital, while also taking care of what belongs to the past as cultural heritage, as well as the new spaces that have been added to this maternity hospital and that undoubtedly make the service easier, and make the stay of mothers and children who enter and leave the maternity hospital much better in quality.

The transformation of healthcare is before the eyes of all those who want to see, but healthcare is at the same time also in the mouths of all those who do not want to see.

And I want to do what I always do when I have the opportunity: to express my respect to all doctors, nurses, and all healthcare workers, who do extraordinary work and who also face an extraordinary storm of words that they do not deserve.

I only want to recall that today, in our healthcare system, we have many things to count, but we no longer have many of those problems that we had not long ago, but just a decade ago. We do not have the staggering number of post-operative infections that kept people in hospital for days after surgery because of extremely difficult hygienic conditions and because of medical instruments that were completely worn out.

And in our healthcare system, nearly 100,000 surgical interventions are performed, of which, on average, 65,000 to 70,000 are interventions in the operating room, and another 25,000 to 30,000 are other surgical interventions.

It is an extraordinary volume of service, which speaks to the fact that doctors and nurses in Albania serve the public, serve citizens, and serve people who need them with dignity. And like everything else that unfortunately happens in the system and that runs counter to healthcare professionals.  Naturally, it is part of the objective to make the system even better, to completely cleanse it of every kind of channel through which the mud of bribery comes and goes.

And in closing, I want to add that we have done everything possible for your salaries to increase continuously.

We have increased them very significantly, but I want you to be convinced — since here, fortunately, the majority are women, but the men should be convinced as well; and even if they are not convinced, what matters is that the women are convinced, you know my formula: once the women are convinced, then it is clear where the men will go afterward — that we will continue to increase salaries.

We will continue to take care of the well-being of your families, who sacrifice a great deal, because unlike many other professions, yours is a profession in which the family is forced to share with many others. I mean, it cannot have you only for itself.

Thank you very much, much respect!

I did my best to take the sun off the top of your head. Now move toward the shade and enjoy this new space, and the best is still ahead.

Thank you!