Minister of Justice Ulsi Manja, accompanied by Director General of Prisons Klevis Qose, inspected Fier prison.

Qosja said that, “The new fleet of ambulances has been financed 50% from the fund of the General Directorate of Prisons and 50% from seized assets and SPAK. All ambulances have full medical cabinets for first aid that can be given to every convict and detainee”.

According to him, the prison fleet was depreciated, with only 3 ambulances inherited from 2020-2021 period.

“We currently have 15 new ambulances, equipped with the most advanced technology, which are added to the modern fleet of vehicles in the penitentiary system”, said Qosja.

He also said that the Agency for the Management of Seized and Confiscated Assets has provided support with 8 new ambulances while the General Directorate of Prisons has provided 7 new ambulances.

“The new ambulances will be distributed in Fier, Shkodra, Korça, prison No 313, the Prison Hospital. Shënkolli prison, where prisoners with mental health illnesses are treated, will be equipped with one of the old ambulances. All measures have been taken for the ambulances to have doctors, nurses, and drivers who will serve in each prison according to the ambulance distributions”, said Qosja.

Minister Manja also closely watched the completion of the reconstruction of the gym and dormitories for the Prison Police in Fier, calling it “another concrete step towards a more efficient, safer and more humane system”. /k.s/j.p/p.s./

The new ambulances will be put to the service of several hospitals in the country, such as in Shkodra, Malësi e Madhe, Vau i Dejës, Puka, Dibra and Gramshi.

In her speech, Minister Koçiu emphasized that these ambulances will be an added value for the operation of our fleet, which has been on the increase almost every year.

Having in focus the strengthening of the structures and the response to emergencies, Minister Koçiu said that work is being done to further improve the National Emergency which has already been raised to another stage.

She emphasized that in the course of the last 4 years, thanks to the support of the government, it has been possible to strengthen the fleet of ambulances in the territory with 106 new ambulances equipped with all life-saving equipment, strengthening and modernizing the emergency paramedical service, to respond to every call for medical emergencies from citizens throughout the territory in an average of 15 minutes.

The minister underlined that thanks to the investments, the ambulances are no longer simply the vehicle that transports the sick to the hospital, but enables the service to be received immediately, without the need to transport to the hospital more than half of the citizens who have been offered help.

All ambulances are equipped with the necessary devices that come to the aid of intubated persons, in particular.

The National Emergency remains one of the main units of the health system, which carries out 350 to 400 missions in the residence and receives 1500 to 2000 calls per day from the entire territory of the country./k.s/r.e/p.s./

The brand new vehicles best-fitted with life-saving equipment are the latest investment that will significantly reducing the ambulance response time to the emergency scene, as well as it will significantly improve quality of healthcare delivered to the citizens, serving not merely serving as a means of patient transport to the hospital, but as mobile mini-hospital to ensure and provide complete and adequate care and all sorts of services in cases of emergencies.

The National Emergency Service’s fleet has now been transformed from a fleet of outdated vehicles, which were used as taxi cabs, into a decent fleet fitted and equipped to deliver best European standards. The fleet is now fully operational, capable of providing a real time response to any emergency call and deliver 24/7 first aid treatment to patients in whole territory of Albania.

Prime minister Edi Rama visited Wednesday the National Medical Emergency Centre together with the Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu to see firsthand that add to the existing fleet.

Health Minister Ogerta Manastirliu said that expanding the ambulance fleet of the medical emergency service has been a top priority in the investments over the past years, in a bid to provide best emergency response throughout the territory of the country.

“We have significantly expanded the ambulance fleet of the national emergency service. Some 8 brand new ambulances have added to our fleet. Not only these ambulances will become fully operational starting tomorrow, but they will also improve care service delivered to citizens and will cut the response time. The ambulance response time has been actually halved since we committed to do so. These are C-type ambulances, practically equipped and best-fitted with all the equipment, including respirators, defibrillators. The ambulance fleet has expanded since 2018 and now has 110 vehicles. As many as 127 medical emergency centres are now operational all over the country. The Medical Emergency Service conducts more than 119,000 missions a year, with half of them outpatient and home care services and this approach has radically changed the service, as well as has increased the public trust in the emergency service,” Manastirliu said.

With the medical emergency service reorganized and with the Coordination Unit established, every service is now registered online and the response time is cut to only 15 minutes from 45 minutes previously, so the response time has been reduced by 30 minutes. Online medical consultation will be also provided for the very first time by a doctor at the coordination unit, which did not exist before.

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During her visit to the National Emergency Center, Manastirliu held a virtual meeting with the health structures of the north, to discuss the coordination of actions on the ground in response to possible health emergencies, due to heavy rain in the northern country.

“All the structures of the health system have been on alert, the National Emergency Center in cooperation with civil emergency structures, municipalities, prefectures, all the structures of the line ministry have been engaged on the ground to handle any eventuality and problem caused by the heavy rain of the last 48 hours”, Minister Manastirliu said.

Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu posted on social networks a video with moments from the daily work and mission of the doctors and staff of the National Emergency.

The National Emergency Doctor, in charge of the Coordination Unit, Klejdi Cankja said that, “Emergency in its everyday life is a very dynamic job. When we receive a call, we never know what will await us”.

He says that the best way to help a person, to save his life has always been emergency work.

“We are not always calm. Often we also feel the emotions of family members and the patient who is suffering, but I try to put these emotions aside and use them as a spur or as an incentive to give them the best possible help”, Doctor Cankja confessed.

He considers himself lucky to have experienced the step-by-step modernization of the equipment inside the ambulance.

“Now, that we come, it’s not just that the ambulance comes, picks up the patients and transports them. The ambulance acts as a mini-hospital that has the opportunity to provide specialized assistance at the scene and during transport, and we also have the opportunity to deliver the patient more complete and to refer to colleagues regarding the examinations we have done and the parts of the treatment that we gave to the patient”, said the emergency doctor.

The addition of the National Emergency fleet with new ambulances equipped with all the emergency equipment, have transformed the emergency service throughout the territory, into a dignified service, with contemporary standards./p.s./

Prime Minister Edi Rama visited the Trauma Hospital Centre, which is being reconstructed under a project designed to further expand the facility’s capacities and build contemporary premises in terms of health care delivery.

The Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu said that upgrading the capacities of the National Medical Emergency fleet with new ambulance cars will help the paramedics to deliver best and real-time care services to any patient throughout territory of the country. “It is a 1.4 million euro worth investment. A total of new ambulances fully fitted with all life-saving equipment have been provided as part of the effort to further upgrade the National Medical Emergency Service and best respond and cope with the Covid-19 pandemic situation. Hospital structures and medical teams throughout the country, under the coordination of the National Medical Emergency Service, carried out more than 140,000 missions in 2021. Around 50% of the missions were conducted in Tirana and that’s why a good part of the new fleet will be deployed in Tirana. A total of 15 ambulance posts or locations, from 12 previously, will now be available to deliver best service, and a mini-fleet for the gravest emergency cases. More than 100 new ambulance cars have been added to the medical emergency fleet in the last few years,” Health Minister Manastirliu said.

Meanwhile, the Director General of the National Medical Emergency Centre, Skender Brataj explained that the new ambulance cars have been fitted with any required equipment to ensure safe transport of the patients to hospital.  “What is specific about these ambulances is that they also involve a mechanical ventilator to allow for transportation of any intubated patient from any corner of Albania. The equipment also include monitor/defibrillator, infusion pumps, a portable suction unit, airway management devices and emergency drugs. They are also fit with two 10-liter medical gas cylinders and two smaller two-litre cylinders, which can provide supply autonomously for 16 hours. We no longer face oxygen transmission problems especially at this stage of the pandemic. These are equipment we now find installed in every ambulance. They are equipped to deal with emergency and trauma situations,” Brataj said.

The Director of the Medical Emergency Centre also said that the emergency service is successfully  responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by employing all its capacities. “Since outbreak of the pandemic, the National Medical Emergency Centre has received over 1.330 million calls and has handled more than 40,000 missions for COVID patients, with 48% being transported to the hospital centres and 52% of them being delivered care at home. More than 615,000 calls were received and 140,000 house visits were performed in 2021 only.

The government head was briefed on the newest investment in Tirana’s Trauma Hospital Centre, which is currently handling health emergencies along with medical staff at the Shefqet Ndroqi University Hospital.

“A new investment is underway at Trauma Hospital to rehabilitate the entire emergency and the internal diseases wards. A skyway will connect the whole hospital’s central corpus. The investment will allow us to treat all the internal diseases at this new facility that is being rehabilitated and will be equipped with the best contemporary equipment and conditions,” Health Minister Manastirliu said, adding “that new laboratory under the public-private partnership has been made available. The labs network will become available in all territories of Albania and in the four remaining regional hospitals and I am confident we will complete an essential service up to the highest contemporary standards of the entire medical labs network. Construction of this building is set to complete within next October. With rehabilitation of the central corpus, we will complete the entire rehabilitation project. The Trauma Hospital and the Shefqet Ndroqi University Hospital centre are currently handling all the medical emergency cases, as work is also underway to rehabilitate the Infectious Diseases Hospital and we need to relieve University Hospital Centre from handling emergent surgical interventions.”

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