By Andi Bushati/ The merchants of death were not born out of nowhere

2024-06-27 17:51:00, Opinione Andi Bushati

By Andi Bushati/ The merchants of death were not born out of nowhere

Analyst Andi Bushati

The scandal of the arrested doctors, who deprived cancer patients of treatment in the public hospital, and then sold the drugs clandestinely and at unaffordable prices, is much more than the conspiracy of the seven white shirts to the detriment of their patients. . No matter how immoral, macabre, or criminal they are, their handcuffing, wiretapping and uncovering of a scheme that exposes everyone who had the misfortune of facing expensive medications is evidence of a rotten health system. And if you think that health is one of the most merciless mirrors of a country's development, even more so when it is led by a force that is sold as the left, the roots of evil go down even deeper.

Who has not been lucky enough to personally encounter this spectacular failure in the management of a state, when asked about the medical system, remembers mainly three things: Edi Rama's promise before he came to power, for free medicine; his exit to Ylli Rakipi with a bunch of rusty tools in his hand to compare with the great change that has taken place; and finally, the propaganda about a prime minister who roamed the world as a beggar for vaccines, to save the lives of his own people.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, LSA source

But this clamor worthy of totalitarian regimes turns to dust and ashes when confronted with the bitter reality of the numbers. Not only because today everyone has realized that, contrary to the beautiful promises, the cost of medicine has become more expensive than ever, but also because the statistics show that we are classified worse than anyone in Europe, even in our region. Albania ranks last in the Western Balkans for the number of doctors per 10,000 inhabitants. According to the WHO, it counts around 18.8 such, while the average of the developed countries of Europe is around 40. If you see another and more symbolic indicator, that of infant mortality, which shows not only the efficiency of the health system, but also the state of poverty and the social economic situation, the truth is more bitter. This data, which served the eminent geographer and sociologist Emanuel Todd, to predict the fall of the Soviet empire in 1976, and which is used today as an indicator of the health of a society, we have twice the size of the region. In Albania, 8 babies die for every 1,000 births.

Even with the much-promoted statistics for the successful fight against covid 19, the tale of renaissance successes is a falsehood. Although Edi Rama turned success in coping with the pandemic into his electoral campaign cause, even manipulating the death forms, according to Eurostat and IMF data, Albania had the highest increase in deaths in Europe during 2020 Even for the vaccination campaign, for which the prime minister boasted: "lucky you have me", we are ranked last in the region, leaving behind only Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These are the data of a system on the verge of collapse, which, for the sake of truth, the renaissance, when it came to power, inherited it in the same state, but for which it did nothing to improve it. And this has an explanation, despite the investments that have been made and the gardens or renovated facades of the hospitals that are shown to the public in the news editions.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, LSA source

Since he came to power, Rama and his people saw the concessions in health, as the incinerators would later design: as a wealth of gold to be robbed. It is not for nothing that they are being investigated by the justice system, which has so far brought unimaginable abuses to light. Because the money allegedly thrown away in the name of free healthcare has evaporated. Albanian taxpayers spend over eight million euros a year for the failed Check Up, where even those who do not show up are paid. About 17 million euros are currently spent on the provision of a set of surgical instruments, which is also used for a nail removal. For dialysis performed in public hospitals, over 9 million euros, while for laboratories, twice this amount.

So half a billion euros, thrown in favor of anonymous people, often unrelated to the field and with completely dubious procedures. This is the chilling truth of our medical system, which those fresh out of school want to abandon to run to Germany, while another part, to milk it, as those monsters of oncology did.

When you learn about this miserable situation, when you become aware of the robbery directed from above, some questions naturally arise: Isn't it a great challenge to remain professional and moral within this system? Doesn't the lack of idealism of the bosses betray the oath of the new recruits of the order of Hippocrates? Does not the gluttony of those on their heads stimulate the appetite of the little fish? Isn't this batak vice?

None of these questions are intended to exonerate in the slightest the samples suspected of doing business with cancer death. If they have committed the crimes they are accused of, let them burn on the pyre of public morality. But their lynching is nothing more than a part of the whole, because no matter how criminal and heartless they have been, they are both the specimens and the victims of a system designed over their heads, whose architects will continue to similar offspring.