Long list of patients waiting for heart surgery at QKUK

There have been 128 open - heart heart operations at the Cardiosurgia Clinic in Kosovo during 2017.

But there are 350 heart patients who need intervention, who have been on a waiting list for years.

Basri Sejdiu, a task director of the Cardiodrogy Clinic, tells Radio Free Europe that emergency cases are conducted at the clinic and do not wait, but for other cases, it happens to be expected for years. According to him, during 2017, patients on the list have been operated since 2015.

We had a problem with a lack of material and couldn't work. One of the current problems that is going on is the opening of the second operating hall, so we can have a bigger number of operations. There's 350 people waiting.

So the list is long, but we think that with these capacities and the admission of the nurses' staff, we can do a lot more. We're planning on doing 250 operations this year. Most people who are on the waiting list usually wait, but it is each individual solution to where he decides to go”, Sejdiu says.

In contrast, the Cardiogenic Clinic has been operating with only two cardiosurgeons for years until more than two others have recently been employed with regular contracts and two doctors with contracts on the work.

For a time this clinic was shut down in the absence of professional staff, as well as the severe lack of equipment and needs for open-heart surgery. By October 2015, however, it had been refunctioned with only two cardiosurgeons and had operated many patients.

Open-heart operations, a service that over the years has not been possible at the University Clinical Centre in Kosovo, patients have done outside public health institutions.

The annual amount the Health Ministry has earmarked for the patients' treatment programme abroad is twom euros a year, while demands from patients are much larger.

Cardiosurgeon Adem Grbolar says that during the day, only one operation is performed. He explains that if they even had an operating hall, two operations could be performed a day, which would reduce the list of patients waiting for interventions.

The waiting list is over, but we need additional capacity, as well as medium staff. We also need an extra room so that two operations could be performed during the day. Our goal is to reduce this list, but this list of patients has been held for years”, Grbular notes.

Similarly, cases of children born with heart abnormalities continue to fail to operate in Kosovo. This in the absence of the Cardiosurgeonics service.

Over a year, according to health professionals, about 150 children seek heart intervention.