13.5% of Albanians lack the financial resources to meet their basic health needs, like getting regular checkups or other physical examinations, due to high-priced services, tests, and treatments.

In northern Albania, the situation is even more difficult, as 21% of the population living there, is not able to afford basic health examinations.

The data was published by EUROSTAT, which ranked our country first in terms of patients’ inability to get treatment.

Putting these percentages into the real world means there’s a total of 380 thousand residents in Albania, that declare they’re unable to or lack the resources, to get medical checkups.

The study also found that the situation worsened in 2019, compared to previous years:

2017 – 12.5% of the population

2019 – 13.5% of the population

Even in those cases, where the list of medication is reimbursed, other hurdles and bureaucracies present themselves and in most cases, they make it nearly impossible for patients to get a hold of their much-needed treatments.

In the region, Kosovo is ranked second, followed by Montenegro.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also served to bring out the previously not-so-obvious inequalities that are present in EU member states.

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