A Kosovo nurse cares for an average of 24 patients because of difficult conditions

The Kosovo government has made the decision on the commitment of additional staff of 1,286 people by half last year.

These workers have started working at different periods, while the contract they have been issued has had a six-month or three-month term, with the possibility of continuing for the next three months.

Contacted by Radio Free Europe, the Health Ministry has provided no information about the number of employees whose contracts are expired and how long they continue to remain at work.

In a written reply, she has said the decision on continuing contracts will be made “regardless of the pandemic situation in the country”.

Currently, Kosovo is going into a slight wave of pandemic, compared to the end of last summer, or the first weeks of this year, when the number of people infected within the day with coronary has reached several thousand.

Blaine Krasniqi is one of the nurses who has started working as an additional staff at the University Clinical Centre in Kosovo last December.

As things stand now, its contract is expected to be concluded in June.

Blaena says there is no information about what will happen to her workplace.

I have trained professionally and I want the Ministry of Health to enable me to remain within the health system and make me a regular contract”, Blaena says of Radio Free Europe.

Victor Havolly, from the Kosovo Infermies Union, says the health system needs additional nurses and that the Ministry of Health should extend the already existing staff contracts.

According to Havolly, at clinics at the University Clinical Centre in Kosovo, a nurse cares for 24 patients, while their maximum number should be seven.

This unproportional state, he says, also fails quality services for patients.

Furthermore, Havolli adds, nurses target migration, due to lack of work in Kosovo.

The current concern is not only for the interest of new generations to abandon Kosovo, but concern is for employees who are looking at alternatives to employment in Western states, because nursing salaries are not for survival, but for survival”, Havol says.

The basic salary of a nurse in Kosovo is about 400 euros a month.

Kosovo's healthcare staff consists of more than 14,000.

Of them, according to Federation of Health Union Chairman Blerim Syla, more than 3,200 are doctors of all profiles, more than 7,000 are nurses, while the rest are administrative personnel.

Syla says Kosovo's health system needs more than 4,000 additional nurses.

It would be very human and professional to accept these [additional class] with automatism... Tens of nurses, each month, are quietly abandoning the system and hiring at other places”, says Syla.

Blaena, 21-year-old nurse, says that if the contract is not continued at QKUK, she will try to migrate to Germany.

I've been thinking about migration. During this time of working, I have had a setback, thinking that it is getting better and that I will stay in my place. But there's no choice here. Still, I think I'm leaving because I've had contact with colleagues who started working in Germany... Job conditions and wages there are very good”, Blaena says.

Hatage Avdyli, of the Gjakova municipality, has been working as a nurse in the town of Dortmund, Germany, for ten months.

Similarly, she says she has worked three years in the health system in Pristina public and private.

“I've been working six months for the salary I get for a month in Germany”, she says.

The nurse's net salary in Germany is 2,400 euros a month.

In Kosovo, too much work, too much responsibility, little money. At QKUK I worked as a support staff in the pandemic, and two nurses took care of 24 to 28 patients. Only one of us has been taken care of for patients, the other has assisted patients outside the rooms. Here [in Germany], seven nurses care for 15 patients. The number of nurses increases with the number of patients”, Hatdz relates.

At the hospital where she works, she says 16 other nurses from Kosovo and three doctors work.

Being in her 30s, Hatage says she does not believe she will return to Kosovo. Currently, she says she lives alone in a rented apartment worth about 400 euros a month.

When I look at the positive aspects for my family's future, there's perspective” here, she says.

The evacuation of medical staff from Kosovo, mainly towards the European Union countries, is a problem that has been accompanying Kosovo for years.

According to Kosovo Medical Oda data, 580 doctors have left Kosovo in the period 2018-2021. In the first nearly three months of this year, Kosovo health institutions have abandoned 59 doctors.

The fugitives complain mainly about working conditions, including salaries. Some, despite professional skills, fail to find stable jobs in Kosovo.