UNMIK/PR/33

PRESS RELEASE

22 August 1999

SRSG MEETS WITH HEALTH WORKERS

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UNMIK, Dr. Bernard Kouchner, met today in the Municipality Building with some 120 doctors, nurses and other health workers from around Kosovo. The meeting was billed as the "first step towards the overhaul of the health system in Kosovo".

In his introductory remarks, the SRSG said that he wanted this meeting to be an opportunity to talk with the participants rather than to talk to them because he would not take any decisions in this field without consulting them. "For various reasons, the health care system in Kosovo is sick and we must approach it as a patient," said Dr. Kouchner.

In order to restore the health care system and provide good services to all the inhabitants of Kosovo without building separate system, Dr. Kouchner proposed that the participants keep politics out of their debates. They should be guided only by the interest of the patients and working with the five following points:

Validation and retention of health workers; Qualifications and numbers of doctors, nurses and other health workers; Regrouping of facilities to provide better care; Financing of health services, and Transmissible diseases, and especially tuberculosis.

Dr. Kouchner thanked KFOR for its excellent work in the area of health and all the health workers who had stayed to perform their duties during the difficult time of the war.

After a long, tense and emotional exchange, it was agreed to establish three working groups which will begin meeting as of tomorrow 23 August 1999. They are: human resources development, health policy and transmissible diseases. Those groups are free to form sub-groups and are encouraged to invite specialists, members of the civil society, patients and even political parties to enrich their debates.

The SRSG insisted on the urgent character of the work to be done because soon the emergency period financed by the United Nations presence would be over and the health system would need to pay for itself.