'Together for Life' NGO in Tirana published a report on the minimum standards hospitals need to cope with COVID-19 patients.
Monitoring at 57 public and private hospitals revealed a series of staffing and medical equipment shortages during the Covid pandemic, VOA reports.
The report stressed that Albania's hospitals currently have 31 beds per 10,000 inhabitants and 1 doctor per 1,000 inhabitants.
The report of the organization Together for Life states that the human resources in Albanian healthcare are unequally distributed.
"The focus on the capital's hospitals and the entire pandemic management overwhelmed patients from all over the country as well as doctors in the capital. The monitoring revealed that specialist doctors are concentrated in Tirana and Durrës, while in remote hospitals they are very few"- says Denisa Canameti, representative of the organization Together for Life.
According to the report, the hospital with the most specialists is that of Durrës, while the hospitals with the least specialists are in Dibër, Kukës, and Gjirokastër.
Kukës and Gjirokastra hospitals lack infectious disease doctors. Hospitals in Berat, Dibra, Elbasan, and Kukes report the presence of only one pulmonologist.
The hospitals of Berat, Dibra, and Gjirokastra have only one resuscitator, which makes specialized care difficult, says the report of the organization Together for Life.
Focusing all attention on the Covid Pandemic disrupted the chronic disease management system, the report said. During the pandemic in hospitals were observed insufficiency of doctors and beds, lack of special facilities for patients with Covid, lack of a unified protocol to prevent the spread of infection, a limited number of intensive care equipment and respirators, and lack of portable breathing apparatus to ensure transport of Covid patients.
The report states that no hospital has its own oxygen plant to meet the increased needs and especially the hospital of Kukes, which has no infrastructure for medical gases, which makes this hospital unsuitable for the treatment of patients with covid-19.
The report notes that reducing the spread of infection in the hospital is one of their weak points in managing the Covid pandemic.
According to monitoring, only 5 hospitals have created separate facilities for medical staff and patients.
In regional hospitals planned for COVID wards, beds were insufficient to cope with the number of patients in need of resuscitation treatment.
The monitoring noticed that only 5 hospitals had mobile mechanical respirators for transporting patients to COVID hospitals, and these hospitals in Dibër, Lezhë, and Gjirokastër had not had these facilities.
Also, the lack of portable fans makes it difficult to transfer patients in critical condition, so these hospitals, although planned for COVID wards, start towards COVID hospitals in Tirana for every patient, regardless of the level of lung involvement from the infection.