Deputy Chairman of the Socialist Movement for Integration Petrit Vasili has criticized the ministry of Health for ordering the reduction of the number of surgeries on patients because they lack money to pay for the concession of the sterilization of surgery instruments.

Vasili said such a decision means that “an ill person prepared to undergo surgery will not do it and the operation will be postponed, but health cannot wait because the thieves in the government are short of money”.

He added he believes this is “one of the most inhumane affairs”. “You have heard a lot about the concession of the sterilization as one of the biggest ones in the Albanian healthcare”, Vasili said. “What has happened with this concession that costs millions of Euros when it could have cost much, much less? The Ministry of Health has ordered to interrupt the surgeries because there is no money to pay for the sterilization and operations should be planned and interrupted if they pass the number. Meanwhile, the sterilization of surgery instruments in Albania today costs 25 times more than it would cost if managed normally, just because of this concession”.

“Hundreds of doctors and their staffs confront with their patients every day due to this problem, because they have no instruments. Quite unnecessarily, they are given sets of 30 instruments even for easy operations that need only 3-4 instruments, and this happens only to use more money. An intervention costs in average nearly €200 while it shouldn’t be more than 5-6 Euros”.