Prime Minister Edi Rama’s speech at the ground-breaking ceremony for construction project of new Internal Diseases Hospital and the Surgery Hospital buildings:
There is a saying: “A hospital is never the place for the sick.”
The truth is that – as you better than anyone else know – no matter how perfect a hospital is, still it is not the ideal place to be sick because it always needs increasingly more.
Turning to the reality of this Hospital Center, I believe that anyone who has lived the history of creation, formation, then demolition, and then the Center’s rebirth, knows quite well how much has been done over the past few years. Just like I want to assure everyone that I am well aware a lot still need to be done in order to build a central hospital that meets the highest and best European standards.
The situation is still complex and if we are to take a walk around and in the Hospital Centre one can find a lot of positive things, as well as a lot of negative aspects. For example, this is the only hospital centre in Europe where still a car traffic is allowed and where no one knows who is who driving along the internal roads and where we still need to ultimately and permanently separate entire service from the outside part that interferes constantly.
With the progress of this project underway, we will be able to kick off construction of a modern parking lot, which will ultimately separate the hospital centre from the service by private cars. At the same time, we are working with the Centre’s director to construct a dedicated road so that those living within the hospital’s territory will no longer cause interference.
But having said this in terms of things still far from being what we want them to be, I believe we can now state that the new considerable investment in this Centre we make a significant step towards ensuring a much more efficient and integrated service. The new 120-bed Surgery Hospital facility with seven operating rooms, together with the new Internal Diseases Hospital, represents a vital infrastructure for the Centre’s lacking transformation over the years.
A hospital cannot be considered complete once its walls are built and equipment supplied. The hospital’s functioning is guaranteed by the nursing and medical personnel. Therefore, beyond the stigma that unfairly associates nurses and doctors with corruption, the truth is that the majority of those wearing the white coats are the heart of this system and it is them who save people’s lives or help thousands of people recover and as such they deserve special and continued attention. We will invest again by approving a new salary increase for workers in the country’s health sector.
The government has decided a new pay rise for doctors, nurses and practitioners in an indispensable move to keep on delivering a clear message of respect and the need to maintain this army of health workers consolidated, as they need everything, but above all deserves deep respect for their daily sacrifices. It is not always easy to work in the health sector, where the conditions are not always the right and desired ones, and under double pressure from the rather non-objective public opinion and perception on one side, and the family members of patients, who sometimes commit intolerable acts against doctors, exactly because of this opinion that is inspired by the trash media we coexist in our democratic life.
However, worth mentioning is the fact that the health system reform is horizontal and has practically affected all aspects that need to improve. I am very pleased that we have managed to introduce the check-up programme which is provided for free to all individuals aged 35–70 years and we are witnessing how the people’s attitude are changing step by step and accepting the preventive check-ups. We are still far from what we need, but the encouraging signs are enough to assess the importance of this process and the fact that thanks to basic medical check-up, a considerable number of individuals are informed about unknown health conditions and in this way we detect diseases and cut health care cost.
I am confident we have done the right thing and we are now seeing very positive results from the medical device and instrument sterilization services that are to be expanded in the whole hospital infrastructure across the country.
We are pressing ahead with the construction and reconstruction of healthcare centers. Our ambition to build 300 new healthcare centers, all equipped according to a preset standard and a qualified medical and nursing personnel. Construction of the first 80 healthcare centers and clinics is set to complete by year end, whereas the upcoming budget projects funding for the construction of 100 other centers next year and I am pretty confident that construction of 300 centers will complete by the end of this term in office, significantly reducing the current large influx of patients and work overload at the Tirana University Hospital Center in tandem with the new services that are being introduced in other regional hospitals, also thanks to a precious contribution about which I would like to express my appreciation to every University Hospital team involved in the hospitals’ patronizing program.
Our ambition is greater than that, because you all already know we have expressed and long-discussed the indispensability to further consolidate the basis of a true hospital autonomy and usher in another phase with doctors no longer being paid and rewarded according to category, but according to workload. This is a necessity, just like the creation of opportunity for the doctors to work privately in the public hospitals. These are two key elements that will eventually lead our health system to the future. In addition to construction of new hospital facilities, in addition to pay rise for the medical and nursing personnel, beyond the transformation of the logistics, these two elements remain our challenge.
In order for these two elements to materialize we should build sufficient basis for the service and protocol costs, because otherwise we would definitely embark on an adventure with an unhappy end.
This is also the reason why selection of the new heads of the hospital wards is crucially important. I am looking forward to seeing the hospital wards be headed mostly by female managers. I am confident that heads of hospital wards have a key role to play in this stage and the efforts to carry out these processes, because it is not only about having people professionally fit, but also skilled service administrators in every respect. This is the major challenge we currently face, as one can find really very good doctors, but not necessarily skilled administrators.
Therefore, I am pretty confident that the way the process has been built and the loyalty of your former director and the current Health Minister to the programs and goals are a guarantee that they will make the best possible choices.
A hospital is never the best place to be for the sick, but yet it is the only place they can go to and the efforts to make the hospital an ideal place for the patients is a continued endeavor also in the developed countries.
Expressing gratitude and respect for what you do on daily basis and assuring each and every one of you that I don’t belong to the people having a negative perception about doctors and whole medical and nursing personnel, but quite the contrary, I belong to the small group of people who think you deserve a lot better and a lot more than that, I wish you all the best and apologize for being late at this meeting because of a meeting with a foreign visitor.
Thank you!
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With the construction of a new internal disease and surgery facilities, the Mother Teresa University Hospital Center will enhance its capacities.
The transforming project worth of EUR 25 million and which was launched today is part of the government’s major investment in the country’s health sector. Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu joined the University Hospital medical and nursing staff to lay the foundation stone for the radical transformation of two pillars of medical service, such as internal medicine and surgery.
The launch of this important project on modernization of the country’s largest hospital center is a long-awaited moment for the staff of doctors, nurses and medicine professionals serving for many years there. Hematologist Adela Perolla, in her opening remarks during the ceremony marking the launch of works for construction of the two new hospitals, said the investment will significantly improve the hospital conditions and will ease the doctors’ workload and help in the efforts to provide best possible hospital services to citizens.
The Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu noted that the government’s major project is being materialized with the new construction site right where old buildings constructed in the 1930s stood until few months ago. Explaining the project, Health Minister said: “Construction of a new internal diseases hospital, worth of EUR 11 million, with a capacity of 345 beds and 14 medical services will complete in 30 months from now. The new hospital will also provide the polyvalent emergency service. For the first time ever, the new facility is designed to function as a daily and short-stay hospital with 60 beds for patients who may not need a longer hospital stay, but they can still receive outpatient treatment.”
As for the surgery hospital that is being built above the current two-storey emergency hospital, the Minister said: “Only in nine months from now, we will have a new surgery facility with 7 operating rooms and a capacity of 120 beds.”
But, the capital city is not the primary beneficiary in the major health sector projects. The chemotherapy and hemodynamic units most recently inaugurated in the Fier regional hospital are two other important investments for the patients needing these vital services in the southern district.
The sterilization and new instrument service has been extended to all hospitals across the country. As many as 50 000 surgical interventions a year, half of them performed in the Tirana University Hospital Center are performed in safe procedures for the patients thanks to the new surgical instruments that prevent hospital acquired infections.
Recently announced reimbursement drug list has been expanded with 36 new drugs necessary for the treatment of chronic diseases, including cardiac pathology, internal diseases, cancer or mental health conditions. But most importantly, Herceptin, a costly but necessary medication for breast cancer treatment, was for the first time included on the reimbursement drug list. Now, this medication is offered for free to all women who need this treatment. The new 2019 budget supports a further expansion of the reimbursement drugs list.
