“Patients with Covid-19, who were treated at home during the 15 months of the pandemic, faced high costs for treatment from their own funds, spending at least $1,000 per person in Albania,” said two studies compiled by the organization “Together for Life” with the support of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) in Albania. Experts noted that the government reimbursement package for expenditures allocated only about $40 per person and this reimbursement was given to only 1,707 persons.
“The report finds that according to official statements at least 4.7% of the population was infected with Covid-19 by May this year, while the population that received a reimbursement cost for treatment from Covid-19 is 0.25%. Experts point out that the costs of treating the disease were 10 to 20 times higher than the funds received from the reimbursement,” said Denisa Canameti, an expert with the organization “Together for Life”.
In a second report on health budget monitoring in the last 9 months, the authors point out that the Pandemic is not putting high pressure on additional funds in the budget, But they noted that spending in the health sector has increased by rates lower than total budget expenditures in the last two years.
This year’s state budget projected a slight decline (0.2%) in total spending on health sector financing. The budget monitoring report said that the bulk of 38 percent of the health funds went to protective equipment for medical staff and very little to improve patient services during 2020.
In the meantime the health ministry said that 768 new cases were registered over the last 24 hours as compared with 872 that were evidenced the day before. Meanwhile the number of victims has increased, mounting to 8 fatalities. There is a daily increase of mortality due to the pandemic. / argumentum.al
