The number of doctors and nurses in primary care services including health centers, ambulances, and polyclinics continues to decline. Staff reduction is higher in the rural areas of Albania.
According to health coverage data for the years 2019-2022 of the decision on the expanded national migration profile for the years 2019-2022, it is found that in primary care, the highest decline is among family doctors.
814 doctors were employed in urban primary care services for 2022. Their number decreased by 3% compared to the previous year. The number of nurses was 3,693 in 2022. Compared to 2021, their number increased by 31%.
While in rural primary care services, the number of doctors for 2022 was 637. Compared to the previous year, their number decreased by 4%. Meanwhile, the number of nurses for 2022 decreased by 23%.
According to the internal migration strategy, internal migration is the key factor that has influenced the configuration of medical staff and access to services.
“The internal migration of the population mainly from rural areas to urban areas has inevitably also affected the changing relationships of doctors and nurses with the populations of these areas. The most pronounced decline is in the grouping of doctors in rural areas, also due to the same tendency that the population of doctors shows to move towards urban areas,” the decision states.
Family doctors claim that the decline in medical staff is creating difficulties in receiving services, especially among pensioners, as the elderly and chronically ill cannot receive reimbursable prescriptions, which are initially signed by the family doctor.
“Family medicine is capillary and implies the closest service to the patient. With the absence of family doctors, patients do not receive the proper and timely service. This concerns chronic patients who require continuous care. The quality of service offering decreases, and patients cannot timely receive reimbursable medications or the proper recommendations.
Furthermore, these shortages of family doctors are felt in situations like the one we are experiencing now. The overload of family doctors with patients, or in some cases, the absence of the doctor in that area, causes problems for the patients who will inevitably have to resort to municipal hospital emergencies or the QSUT,” says Elizabeta Musta, a family doctor at the Kamza Health Center.
For 2022, according to data from the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), approximately 8.4 million visits were made by doctors at health centers, ambulances, and polyclinics. The number of medical visits increased by 3.5% compared to the previous year.
According to INSTAT data, the highest number of visits in health centers for 2022 was for patients over 14 years old. The number of visits for this patient category reached 2.8 million visits. Meanwhile, the number of medical visits for patients over 60 years old reached 1.7 million visits.
Also, in ambulances, the highest number of visits conducted by doctors for 2022 was for patients over 14 years old, with 1.4 million visits respectively. The number of visits for patients over 60 years old reached 692 thousand visits.
