“Zor abounds to travel to Pristina”, cancer patients demand that services be offered to regional hospitals

The demand for oncological services closer to patients is becoming greater by other families, which require that cancer treatments be offered in regional hospitals so that patients are not forced to travel to Pristina for any therapy.

The route of some 60 miles [100 km] to Pristina had become too heavy for Sali Ibrahimaj, especially his wife, who each day had to face chemotherapy and radiation.

For Ibrahimaj, moving to Pristina has brought additional costs to his family, in addition to the enormous expenses it already has for their family's health care.

I'm here today that he has radiation and chemotherapy... Very challenging. I had to pay for the apartment because she's 100 kilometers away from the patient she can't afford... E I had seen a lot of need because this is where they come from all municipalities and it's getting a lot of trouble... and even the smallest expenses due to fatigue”, he said.

Fatmir Luzha also leaves Kachanic for Pristina each week, accompanying his wife, who is in serious health and needs chemotherapy.

The long road, hours of waiting, and images of numerous patients waiting for treatment have become part of its everydayity.

But it requires only one thing: for cancer patients to have closer treatment with their home so that the fatigue of long travel and extra unaffordable expenses does not increase their suffering.

Every week they come from cachanics here for chemotherapy for their wife. He's in serious condition. I had appealed to the government or the ministry: I let an object open somewhere in Ferizaj, closer. Not all Kosovo comes to Pristina. It's a big problem, can't include Pristina over 1300-1400 are... There's no more trouble. 5-6 hours is a session. I don't know how I'm coping. I'm a war veteran with 204 euros' salary, I don't know how I'm handling it myself“, Luza said.

Several times a month from Suhareka to Oncology Clinic in Pristina also travels Najmije Elshani. Every day her husband, Sejdiu, has to receive oncological treatment, they are forced to wake up at 4:00 a.m. to arrive in the clinic on time.

Even for this family the only requirement is for this service to be offered as soon as possible at Prizren General Hospital, so that patients from the region are not forced to travel to the capital for treatment.

Suhareka's “is hardly enough. I wake up at 4: 00 p.m., I give my friend a little breakfast, and here we come at 5:20 to get the number and wait... I was praying if he could offer it as a service near Prizren that it's a big region, there's a lot involved with this disease that has brought us flowers in the garden... It's not like waking up here at four o'clock there at 7:00 and going to Prizren to get a job of”, she said.

And for all these patients' requests, the Minister of Health, Arben Vitita, is on duty. He says the lack of interest by oncologists in applying to contests being opened in regional hospitals is affecting this service from being blocked and distributed.

“We have opened the procedure therapy service at Prizren Hospital, but we've seen that even this hasn't been enough, and in the meantime what we've done is the plan that services not only pills, but also infusions that don't require the presence of the oncologist to be given in Prizren and we've also opened the Oncologist competition at the Peja hospital, but unfortunately it hasn't been reported on to any oncologist, although there have been several times of pressures and in the Ministry of Health, why no competition for oncologists are being opened. Now we need to know: services, completely agree with you, should be decentralised first so that it's not the large flow of patients at QKUKU, but also the second that oncological patients have the closest to oncological services. On the other hand, however, each oncologist cannot come to the University Clinical Center alone. We will open competitions again in Prizren and in Pec, because after Prizren, Peja is the next centre, which will begin with preparations for opening oncological services there”, Vitita said.

The Association of Patients Rights in Kosovo requires that health services that can be decentralised in regional hospitals should be offered as soon as possible. According to them, this would facilitate the patients' access to treatment, reduce additional spending, and at the same time reduce the burden at the University Clinical Centre.

The chairman of this association, Besim Kodra, considers the treatment of patients suffering from oncological diseases unconfirmed.

Their treatment is unconventional, we can say with full mouth, because they have a serious illness, they want a very specialized treatment with the least of the difficulties they need to have because the disease has damaged them. We do it from all of Kosovo's countries, some people who have such problems that we're talking about, then it's extremely difficult for them, for their families and I said, often they plunge into unaffordable spending due to the”, he said.

That health services, especially for cancer patients, should be distributed to regional centres, and Saranda Ramaj says well aware of health policies.

The practice of concentration of health services only at QKUK considers it wrong practice and contrary to laws in power.

I think a reshuffle of SHSKUK would enable the service for cancer patients to be much closer to citizen. There's no legal problem, because the SHSKUK itself has the CKUK and regional hospitals. So doctors would like to go from QKUK to another point of a unique system. I think the concentration of services not only oncology, but other services at QKUK are wrong, and besides that it's wrong, it's also contrary to all the documents the Health Ministry has on the table”, she says.

The following year in Kosovo, about 2 thousand and 100 new cancer cases have been recorded. While, in March of this year, the Association of Oncologists of Kosovo has expressed its concern about the current situation of oncological services in the country, at a time when the number of patients with malaria is increasing year-on-year.

According to this association, despite the great need for oncological services and constant burden on the public health system, some new oncology specialists continue to remain without access to public institutions. / KP/