Foreign doctors work in Kosovo without license

For this violation, the Health Ministry's Health Inspectorate declared at least 26 fines in 2022.

A statement given to Radio Free Europe reportedly “Health inspectors have encountered in cases of non-cooperative health service delivery without a decision to make temporary commitments by the Central Board for Recording and License from the Health Ministry”.

Under the Law on Giving Permission for Work and Employment of Foreign Citizens in Kosovo, each person entering Kosovo for work should have residence and work permits.

An Administrator's Administrator Guide for Temporary License of Health Professionals, issued in October last year, owes health, public and private institutions to apply for permission or license in case they engage foreign health professionals.

Permission and licensing are made by the Board for Recording and License of the Health Ministry and monitored by the Health Inspectorate.

On the basis of Administrative Guide, health institutions that have foreign health professionals without permission are fined 5,000 to 8,000 euros. A physician or other foreign health professionals who work without work permits may be fined between 500 and 1,500 euros.

Health inspectors tell us about REL that cases are usually discovered during conversations with patients who describe doctors and name them, but those names are not found in the health institution's book of notes. Doctors from Turkey's state are particularly mentioned.

From the Kosovo Medical Oda expressed concern about the way international doctors operate and are licensed in Kosovo.

The chairman of this office, Plerat Sejdiu, says foreign doctors who perform services in Kosovo, according to the law, should be first joined in this office, but, according to him, they do not.

We are the only one in Europe and beyond, where their license [of foreign drugs] makes the Ministry of Health rather than Oda. We have no record of their activity. Under the Health Law, they must join the Ode, but with Administrative Guide, this obligation has been lifted”, Sejdiu tells Radio Free Europe.

“Health Inspector, in this regard, does not co-operate with us”, he adds.

REL contacted three private hospitals in Kosovo, which it is aware that they occasionally hire foreign doctors to provide services, but neither refused to talk about the subject.

Bujar Vitija, editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Shneta”, reporting on the health sector in Kosovo, says foreign doctors offering services in Kosovo, in many cases, commit legal violations by failing to meet all criteria for licensing, or by not being licensed at all in the Ministry of Health.

In some cases, these doctors come to recruit patients to be treated in their countries”, he says, without specifying more.

Some of the criteria they don't meet are: non-recognition of Albanian, non-membership in the Medical Oda, non-registering for licenses at the Ministry of Health...”, Vitija adds.

According to him, the Health Ministry should increase the capacities of the Health Inspectorate and seek more responsibility in monitoring and monitoring these cases.

The “they [strange doctors] come as tourists to Kosovo, extortion Kosovo patients, and in many cases go unnoticed by Health Inspectorate”, Vitija says.

A total of 13 officials work in the health inspectors -- chief inspector, executive assistant, archive official and ten health inspectors.

Kosovo, in recent years, is facing a shortage of doctors and nurses, as a number of them have migrated mainly to European Union countries.

The Kosovo Ministry of Health has called on professionals in various medical fields among Albanian exiles to engage and work in Kosovo public health institutions.