With 630 euros a month in Kosovo, doctors target the EU

Krasniqi, who works for 22 years at Anesthesia and Intensive Medicine Clinic at the University Clinical Centre in Kosovo (QKUK). But, he says insufficient pay and inadequate training of health workers are among the main reasons that prompted him to leave Kosovo or pass to the private sector.

For every day I'm thinking of getting out, we're hoping every day and in the background there's no hope. It's a shame. There are also opportunities here, students, my specialists have quit work before and during the pandemic and paid ten times as much in the private sector and left out of Kosovo. I don't work in the private sector, only in the public sector”, he tells Radio Free Europe.

QKUK with 55 anesthesiologists

QKUK Anesthesion Clinic Taskman Gazmend Spahiu says that during this year seven specialists have abandoned him QKUK. According to him, other anesthesiologists have expressed interest in working in any of the EU states.

There are currently 55 anesthesiologists and there need to be 62 sosh. We try to realise all of the urgent and programmed surgical interventions, but there are some halls that don't have anesthesiologists making intervention”, he says.

According to the data, the doctors' gross (expensed) salary in Kosovo is 630 euros, until, example, in Germany, they are paid up to 4,000 euros.

A specialist“is paid as much as a driver of a deputy minister”

The salary in Kosovo's public health system is insufficient even for Tevide Imrin, a health worker at Ferizaj General Hospital.

A specialist's “Paga may sound banal, but it is equal to a salary of a deputy minister's driver. That's the problem. We constantly call us heroes and in fact haven't done any kind of help to health workers”, says Imer.

Health workers estimate that if emergency measures are not taken, Kosovo may soon face a lack of doctors.

Tevide Imer's daughter is in her third year at Medical School. She shows that her daughter, in parallel with her studies, also attends German - language courses because she intends to continue her career in Germany.

The girl says she wants to leave Kosovo immediately because she doesn't find herself here. Even if he gets hired, no perspective, no respect. Friends of the girl are also aiming to leave Kosovo” with her, says Imer.

According to Kosovo Medical Oda data, for eight months this year, 122 doctors have left Kosovo, whose average age is 31 and hundreds of other nurses.

For raising wages through the Law on Salaries, health workers on Monday, November 8th protested in front of the Kosovo Government building.

Blerim Syla, chairman of the Health Union Federation (FSSH), said that if the wage law is not adopted this year, they will take tougher measures.

The average medical age in the Family Medicine Center is 57 years old. Mr. Prime Minister. Albin Kurti, in ten years, will retire 1,200 specialists and heal this population. The Kosovo brain, thanks to the wrong policies, is going outside Kosovo. It's our last chance, we'll wait another week, respecting the election campaign. As of next week, I don't guarantee that it won't start with the blocking of the health system”, Syla said.

The salary law under which the increase in wages in the health system was passed in February 2019, while early March was in effect.

But, in December 2019, the ombudsman body sent this law to the Constitutional Court, as it was said, “the assessment of the compliance” of this law with the Constitution. The Constitution later rendered this law invalid,

By this law, a doctor who could not afford to raise wages from 600 to 1,200 euros, and a nurse from about 400 to 525 euros. The newly graduated doctor, a monthly salary, receives 502 euros, while with the Law for Pay, already abolished, it was preempted to receive 800 euros.

Salaries in the Region

Meanwhile, medical wages have increased this year in Albania to 40 percent, reaching about 651 euros. According to the Federation of Albanian Doctors in Europe, last year over 3,000 doctors have left Albania to exercise their profession in Europe, about 1,000 of them are counted in Germany.

Albania's Health Ministry has announced that for the next year health will receive most of the money from the budget, about 630m euros. Health Minister Ogerta Manastirliu has said that with some of the money covered, increased medical staff wages and the purchase of vaccines against COVID-19.

Even in northern Macedonia, medical wages have marked increases between 40 and 50 percent in the period 2017-2020, after the epidemic situation with the coronary. The basic salary of a specialist doctor in February 2021 has been around 1,800 euros. In addition to the basic salary, medical specialists receive between 300 and 400 euros per month for custody (on weekends, state holidays and night tours).

The increase in wages has also significantly reduced the departure of experts from the country, North Macedonia's Health Ministry say.

According to research done before pay hikes, 50 percent of university clinic doctors thought of leaving the country, and 61 percent of doctors working in public hospitals think about moving from the public sector to the private.