Hello and welcome to UNMIK on air with Sputnik Kilambi and
Martin Redi
There is hardly any area of Kosovan society today that
doesn’t come in for criticism, from one quarter or another. Growing complaints
too about the slow pace of transfer of powers and that Kosovo’s politicians are
not being given a chance to exercise their competencies and prove themselves.
That debate is clearly not going to end any time soon, but equally in question
is the track record of local authorities in areas where competencies have been
handed over – the health sector for example.
Of course, local authorities have to deal with what was
handed to them, but that cannot be a pretext to relegate the health sector to a
low level priority. Certainly, developments or lack of them in this crucial
area have triggered many complaints – the lack of medical outlets, allegations
of incompetence of doctors, the lack of hospital beds and even controversy over
who should be the minister in charge.
Dr Arben Cami: The situation today cannot be
compared to what it was four years ago. It is much better but it is still far
from the situation we would like to bring to the Kosovar health sector. But
concerning the various complaints about the quantity or quality of the services
we provide, I still say that the situation is much worse than the ministry of
health admits, and, above all, what our people, deserve.
Still the problems remain, although they now stem more from the way the health sector is organized. But this, says Mathias Reinicke, of the European Agency for Reconstruction’s health department, can only be improved by the people themselves.
Mathias Reinicke: We still have, every eight
hours, a newborn child dying, which could be saved if health care could be
better. That is a question of procedures, of hygiene. There is still a lot to
be done and we have to push that the public becomes more aware of its right as
a patient.
The ministry of health has urged more cooperation from the
public and has repeatedly asked patients to report any malpractice, corruption
or ill-treatment cases to the ministry. The response was thin and not a single
letter to the ministry was signed.
One of the biggest problems during the first year was the
lack of proper equipment. Most of the equipment was looted or destroyed during
the war, and what was left was, by and large, useless. Donations have taken
care of the shortage of equipment - but that was the easy part, says Mathias
Reinicke, what is now needed is training:
Mathias Reinicke: In terms of technology most
centers are fairly up to date, at least concerning the core equipment, now it
is important to train people, to work with this equipment and at the end to
provide better services for people living in Kosovo. That, however is much more
difficult and it takes more time, here we talk of years not of months
Not just training, adds
Dr. Arben Cami, there are other needs too. Prishtina University Hospital still
has insufficient water supply and most medical workers are struggling simply to
survive:
Dr. Arben Cami: Matters that have to do with
finance are a problem, not only when it comes to equipment, or building new
buildings, Hospitals or whatever. You know that one of the needs, that isn’t
expressed only in health but in all public services are small salaries. And
they do play a big role in motivating health workers.
Mathias Reinecke agrees. The society here has to deal with the health issue, he says, competencies have been handed over to the Kosovar government and what happens now is completely up to them. But he feels, compared with the inputs obtained by other sectors of public services, the health department has achieved great progress.
Mathias Reinecke: Much more money has been
spent, for instance in the energy sector ten times as much, by the EAR at
least, as in the health care sector. With a population which is not healthy and
which cannot rely on good health care any building of a civil society, of an
economy; one can forget about it. We need healthy people, let alone people who
are alive and that means we need a good health care system to build the bases
of a healthy population in order to build up Kosovo.
Mathias Reinecke of the European Agency for Reconstruction ending this edition of UNMIK ON AIR. Thank you for listening.