Prime Minister Rama’s speech at the inauguration of the “American Hospital 3”:

 

Hello everyone!

First of all, I want to wish good health and success to the whole team of this new hospital, where approximately 500 people have been employed – we will have the correct number from Social Insurances – and where optimal conditions have been created in order to increase the quality of healthcare, not just for the capital city but also across the country.

It’s always difficult to be in activities where people talk about the progress in healthcare because awareness that there is still a lot more to do is probably stronger than in activities concerning other areas. On the other hand, the negative perception created over the years by the citizens with regard to the health service in Albania, is much stronger than the negative perception of other sectors of life. Nevertheless, it cannot be said with pride that we have made it possible for the health service in Albania to take an important turn. A turn that is still incomplete, and after which we will have a long way, a difficult path, but without doubt we will have the right path to move further and to make possible that in the Albania we want, health service is a mirror of respect for the dignity of every person. At the same time, it is also an incarnation of the care for everyone’s life and health, regardless of their economic opportunities or social status.

Today, we are in a private structure, but what is important to say and repeat for everyone is that we have already opened a new era of interaction between the public service and the private service, and as we have done and will do at all other areas, an era of serious partnership between the government and private entrepreneurship. Actually, this is translated into the paving of a path that will go on expanding for all those who do not have the opportunity to receive at the private sector a service they need, and in certain areas this service will be paid 100% from the state. Those who come here, will have it for free.

To date, there are 10 packages that are financed 100% by the state, and are implemented not only in public hospitals, but also in non-public or private hospitals. These are important packages that include the basic services of cardio surgery, cardiology, nephrology and cochlear implant.

Healthcare, perhaps in a much more sensitive and more vulnerable way than other areas, is directly related to the state’s funding capacity. We are very proud that this year’s budget for health is the largest budget in all the years of this difficult transition, and it has reached 3% of our GDP. It’s far more than it was, but it’s not as much as it should be. On the other hand, we need to move forward with the transformation of the hospital infrastructure, in the excellent example of the transformation of the University Hospital Centre “Mother Teresa”, which is a model for which we are really proud of, and which must be applied to all regional hospitals. At the same time, to implement through our new program “One billion for reconstruction”, a comprehensive infrastructure improvement project over the next three years, with the new regional hospital in Fier and 10 healthcare centres of excellence across the country.

Through this special funding program, which will be made in addition to the budget made available to date to the National Health Service, we believe that not only new spaces will be created in addition to a significant increase in employment, but what is even more important, we will have the opportunity that health professionals who have been lacking outside Tirana will be funded by the state in our public service with a salary equal to what they would receive if they worked abroad. Which means that it is perfectly possible for us now to implement this stimulus, and it is entirely possible that we won’t have the serious shortcomings inherited from the past in the National Health Service in areas outside Tirana, but we will have a significant increase in the quality of human resources, by significantly reducing the level of doctors who leave Albania.

Also, the promotion of our hospital autonomy program will be of particular importance. We are already in a phase where our healthcare is not based on rumours, but is based on data, it is based on statistics, on cost figures. Once we have calculated all the protocol costs of the healthcare service, we will be able to definitely separate the Health Ministry from the whole hospital infrastructure, by giving the hospital service autonomy in the administration of funds available. Thus we will make possible that our hospital service and the Health Ministry will enter a new era, by being a very important executive power of government policies, by making policies, by monitoring policy outcomes, but by being no longer the point where all claims are collected, where all the money is administered, and where all procurements are made, which to say the truth is an atavism of a past which we left behind 27 years ago.

What is very important, just like for education reform and the healthcare reform, is that we make sure that the hospital autonomy creates a system where, whether it is a state-funded hospital or a hospital funded by the private, the rules and procedures for accreditation, the periodic re-evaluations, the exchange of health, clinical and individual information are unified. In this respect, I believe that this is the modernization that our health system needs, so that service, whether in a public hospital or in a non-public hospital, is a unified service in all respects.

For all those who still to this day are allergic to private entrepreneurship and to public services offered by private individuals, I want to say that the increase in terms of quantity and quality of these services is the best medicine to heal even the public service. If we did not have quality private-funded universities, if we did not have quality private-funded hospitals, we would not have the necessary competition that encourages public universities and hospitals to live up to the challenge of competition. Unlike competition in the field of the free market economy, this competition should definitely be closely monitored and guaranteed by the state in terms of quality. Just as it should be such that it does not create two levels of service for first-class citizens and second-class citizens.

This does not happen, if what the state needs to do is rigorous and if the state does not make the difference between those of the mother and those of the step-mother, but if it sees everyone as a potential to better serve citizens who will receive a quality and equal service regardless of whether they have money or not, whether they go to a public hospital or to a non-public hospital.

Finally, I want to emphasize that we are seeing the first results of the public-private partnerships we have built between state and entrepreneurship in healthcare. Today we have a fantastic transformation of all medical instruments. This transformation will be extended to all hospitals across the country by the end of the year, thus ending an absurd and dramatic story of post-surgery infections, only because of the rusty instruments that dated back to the regime era; thus, the mothers who give birth to their children in our hospitals, or all the patients undergoing surgery – approximately 50 thousand surgeries are made per year – will have the guarantee that after the surgery they won’t have the additional costs because of infections, because of the antibiotics and because they will have to stay in hospital longer than the time required after the surgery.

A new era has begun also for haemodialysis. We’re seeing how the ordeals of people, who are more than one thousand, who receive this service 3 times a week, are slightly going to an end. Until yesterday those people were forced to come to Tirana, receive the service in shifts, and they would spent everything they had for the transport because they had to travel accompanied by some family member. Whereas today, thanks to the networking of the haemodialysis centres in partnership with the private, we have provided two very important things. First, the service is provided near the homes of patients, and second, while the state had to pay each session 90 euros for each patient receiving that miserable service, today the state pays 80 euros and the same individuals receive a great service and receive it for free. This is thanks to the public-private partnership. Just as, thanks to public-private partnership, we will soon have a completely new laboratory system, and we will have a completely different capacity of the laboratory analysis.

We will continue to establish partnerships with the private, despite the accusations, despite defamation, despite all the mud thrown at us as if we were still at the time when some were partisans and some were kulaks. We are convinced that not only are we doing nothing different from what countries that started with greater difficulties have done – let’s just take the example of Turkey, not to mention other countries that are today in the avant-garde in terms of public services funded and administered in partnership with private individuals – but, above all, what interests us is that thanks to these partnerships we receive the mud but people receive quality, qualified, safe and dignified service.

Once again congratulations on this new hospital. Once again, I wish a lot of success to the whole team of doctors, nurses, and janitors who are employed here in this hospital. Once again, I wish a lot of courage and a lot of success to the initiators of this initiative, which is another success story on a difficult path, but, as the day-to-day transformation that is happening to healthcare proves, it is absolutely not impossible.

Many thanks!

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Another modern hospital serving the Albanian citizens has opened its doors in Tirana.

The American Hospital 3 is the largest investment in the health system in the country, with the most modern infrastructure in the Balkans. It has a staff of approximately 500 employees, and it covers an area of 25.000 square meters, with 100 rooms, 170 beds, 5 operating rooms and two coronagraphs, providing optimal conditions and high quality service for patients.

The American hospital, which has another 2 branches in Tirana, is an investment that totals 65 million euros. It is an investment of the Badminster Capital Management Fund, and it is sponsored by the US government, through its OPIC investment agency, as well as by the EBRD.

One of the achievements of this hospital’s cardiologists was the first helicopter transportation in Albania, and the rapid intervention of cardiologists who saved lives. This is the first time in the history of medicine in Albania, the government has decided to support the provision of medical services through a mixed public-private system. There are 10 free of charge packages funded 100% by the government, and they’re being implemented not only in state hospitals, but also in non-public hospitals, in this case also in the American Hospital 3.

The packages include the basis services of cardio surgery, nephrology, cardiology and cochlear implant.

Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Minister of Health Ogerta Manastirliu attended today the ceremony organized on this occasion.