Kamenica women travel up to two hours to deliver their children, when birth and road occur

The maternity service at the Family Medicine Center in Kamenica is out of place, since four years ago the only gynecologist was retired.

Currently, there is no gynecologist to provide services at the centre.

Nazlie Bugaqka, citizen, says residents are abused in the absence of gynecology here, forced to go to Gjilan to receive services.

She says that as a result of this absence, birth also occurs along the way.

There's a lot of gynaecology missing here, see if they're being born unless... A lot of torture, there must be someone here, it's very difficult for us, or you see what's not going on, very hard. God's work, it's supposed to be the doctor, far away from there, with what I've been going to go to, there's no telling”, she says.

Enita Berisha, another citizen, says gynecology in this municipality is very necessary.

The “is very necessary, it's a very serious lack that the citizens of Kamenica feel extremely much”, she says.

Hatage Morina, who points out that Kamenica is a vast territory, something that made it even more necessary in this area.

“It's not a narrow circle of Kamenica territory, of course such a space needs a gynecology here”, she says.

This situation is also disturbing for Kamenica chairman Stayn Kastrati.

He says they are lobbiing even at the Ministry of Health, the prime minister and other organs, for this municipality to offer gynecological services, since he says it should not travel that far for about two hours to receive those services in Gjilan.

We've done the gynaecologist competition, there's no after interest, and now we're starting with the communiqué with the gynecologist association and we're also interested in giving an addition to the municipality, which was the most attractive for a future gynecologist to do these health checks”, he says.

And in the Ministry of Health, they say there is a shortage in some municipalities because gynecologists prefer to work more in secondary and digestive care, not in the Family Medicine Center.

“With administrative guidance for organising primary health care in the municipality, QKMFs have the right to have gynecologist employees. Employments at the QKMF are the competencies of the municipalities for health and social welfare directors. The MS is in favour of the existential measures at the QKMF in municipalities to empower and support municipalities in their efforts to keep them in service of needy patients. The fact is that in some municipalities there is a shortage, because gynecologists prefer or tend to work more in the Third and less in the NCH (QKMF)”, The Ministry of Health for Kosovo has said Fik Hoti.

And the chairman of the Commission for Health in the Kosovo Assembly, Besa Battiu, says they have raised this problem many times by the Ministry of Health, but that nothing has been taken.

She says this issue should be resolved, especially in countries with larger distances to municipalities where residents receive gynecological services, such as the case with Kamenica.

This issue has to be resolved, we're asking Health Minister Uran Ismaili to take into account this because municipalities like Kamenica, which is 30 kilometers away from the municipality of Gjilan, that Gjilan is a hospital in which births are performed, is an enormous distance for mothers, for women who should receive gynaecological services”, she says.

Meanwhile, an organisation that is willing to help regulate the area where gynaecological services could be performed, if managed to locate gynecologist, has been notified.