The construction of Fier regional hospital, an investment and a pledge by the Turkish government, is progressing steadily day after day. The facility is designed not only to be a modern hospital that meets highest European standards, but also a know-how transfer centre, where the pilot project on hospital autonomy will be implemented for first time in Albania to be extended then to all hospital across Albania.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, accompanied by the Minister of Health Ogerta Manastriliu, and the Minister of Infrastructure Belinda Balluku, inspected the ongoing work at the site, where 650 workers, 400 of them Turkish and 250 Albanians, work in three shifts around the clock.
“We will implement the hospital autonomy model for the first time in Albania. The care service standard will be excellent. The hospital is designed to have 150-bed capacity, along with a 20 intensive care beds capacity. A total of 380 physicians, nurses and service workers will be employed in the new hospital, with 50 doctors and nurses set to come from Turkey to provide the model and deliver on the know-how transfer and technology,” Health Minister said.
Meanwhile, the medical devices and hospital furniture are slated to be delivered by end of March. “Some 50 medical personnel will come from Turkey, including managers, ward heads, and specialized doctors and a staff of 320 Albanian health professionals and service workers. The service staff members will be mainly locals in this area, whereas a reallocation of the medical personnel currently working at the existing Fier hospital will be made, but the hospital’s Turkish management team will select them based on a special test. This will be an intermediary phase, when they will transfer the know-how. A team of Albanian assistant managers will work together with the Turkish manager. He will then pick the hospital’s Albanian manager before they leave. The same goes for the hospital ward heads, and the chief nurses. It will be a fantastic know-how transfer scheme and the model will be complemented with the hospital autonomy due to be implemented first as a pilot project here, with a performance-based pay system for the medical personnel. The pilot project also includes same transparency scheme applied at Turkish hospitals that once faced similar abuse cases. But they reformed the system, starting first with the infrastructure, the supply lines, rehabilitated the storage warehouses and overhauled entire system to remove corrupt people. Given the prevailing chaos, it is impossible to apply hospital autonomy. All hospital autonomy will then be applied to all hospitals across the country,” PM Rama said.
