An investment drive to boost the fleet of medical equipment in university hospitals countrywide continues with special focus being attached on imaging, to improve the quality of the service, but also to reduce patient wait time.
“Shefqet Ndroqi” University Hospital in Tirana has been recently equipped with a state of the art Computed Tomography (CT) scanner, which will significantly cut the imaging service provision for patients. The imaging capacities will be doubled in both the University Hospital Centre and the Paediatric Hospital, while 18 x-ray and ultrasound machines will be distributed to regional hospitals throughout the country as part of the 4.2 million euro investment to improve the fleet of high-tech medical equipment.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, accompanied by the Minister of Health and Social Protection, Ogerta Manastirliu, toured the Shefqet Ndroqi University Hospital venues to see the investment in the new imagining equipment there. “We have boosted the imaging capacities at the hospital’s radiology ward. We are currently investing in 16 hospitals across the country to best equip and strengthen the radiology and imaging services. We have also devised a strategy to manage the consequences of COVID, i.e. cases with prolonged COVID symptoms. A new scanner is added to the ‘Shefqet Ndroqi’ hospital, so cases are handled with two scanners, we will add a scanner to the Trauma Hospital by investing in state of the art technology and also to the Korça hospital by renovating the Paediatric hospital in Tirana,” Health Minister Manastirliu said.
The two scanners operating in parallel at the “Shefqet Ndroqi” hospital reduce the patient wait time. Meanwhile, the new imaging equipment, thanks to the latest “software”, offers the possibility of identifying various diagnoses that were previously impossible to detect. “We are now provided the equipment and the required technology to ensure early and timely detection of a much wider range of various diagnoses. This new Computed Tomography (CT) scanner may examine 20 patients in one hour or one patient at every three minutes. On the other hand, thanks to this new technology we can compile 24-hour waiting lists. Thanks to such technology, the wait time at the Tirana University Hospital Centre is now cut to 24 or 48 hours only from around four months previously,” Health Minister added.
The doctors of this hospital express their satisfaction with the investments in equipment which now enable them to perform more detailed diagnostics in a shorter time. Meanwhile, the modernization of the health service infrastructure continues uninterruptedly at all levels, starting from primary care centers to university hospitals, with the aim of increasing the quality of health service delivery for citizens.
More than 19,000 doctors, nurses and health workers saw their monthly wages increase by six percent as of July 1.
