Albanians hold a record in Europe in terms of out-of-pocket payments for healthcare, which amounts to 59.7%.

The acting head of the WHO office in Tirana, Gazmend Bejtja, points out that this money is spent on medicines, so he forwarded the recommendation of the highest health department to increase public funding.

“In low-middle-income countries, out-of-pocket expenses are taken up by medications, and Albania is also a part of this. The more public funding for health is increased, the less out-of-pocket expenses are, the less devastating expenses are for family economies. In Albania, we are somewhere around 3.3% of GDP, which is lower than the EU average, and the WHO recommendation is that at least 4.5% of GDP should be public financing, and this is reflected in the reduction of out-of-pocket expenses” , said Beitja.

The recommendation came during the “Reconceptualization of health care – Vision for a Healthier Albania” conference, organized by the Albanian association of pharmaceutical representatives and of which the Minister of Health Albana Koçiu was a part, who asked for cooperation and not to politicize the disease.

“We are together when it comes to illness, we are together and we have felt ourselves as partners every time we have had problems supplying our hospitals and health structures with vital medications”, said Koçiu.

On the other hand, the patient representatives emphasized the treatment which they asked to be innovative and based on rigorous protocols.