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Conditions and investment at the hospital
It is the largest healthcare center treating trauma in our country, but unfortunately it does not receive the attention it needs when it comes to investment, and its condition remains deplorable. At the University Trauma Hospital, “the atmosphere cannot change as long as investment has always been piecemeal rather than comprehensive, and the next intervention will be the same.” That is what members of the medical staff themselves say quietly. During a visit by Shekulli, the same bench of worn-out wooden planks remained the waiting area for relatives whose loved ones were in intensive care.
Scrawls on walls and railings continue to accompany you almost everywhere. People’s names, football teams, drawings and other artwork have remained on the walls and railings for years.
Damp has taken hold in the corners of the walls. Here and there, the map-like stains it has created have been covered with a coat of paint, but this has visibly left another map, because the color used differs from the existing one. Not to mention the electrical sockets and switches, which, especially on the third floor, are simply empty holes in the wall.
In some, you can even find exposed wires. Then there are the crumbling tiles, signs of the many emergencies this hospital has handled. They differ between some rooms and the corridors, signs that the tiling work was not comprehensive: only the surfaces most in need were replaced.
The University Trauma Hospital clearly needs painting. It is not known when its interior was last painted. The dirt marks on the walls show that it has been a while. The Trauma Hospital clearly needs a complete renovation of its premises.
It needs a proper waiting room for relatives, to put an end once and for all to people settling on the stairs or in the corridors while awaiting the fate of loved ones in intensive care. It needs a heating system that keeps patient rooms at a constant temperature, rather than forcing patients to bring electric heaters from home. So far, as far as possible, work has been done “a little here” and “a little there,” without changing the overall picture, which leaves much to be desired.
Fortunately, there has been investment in equipment. According to hospital managers, the funds have now been released, and it is only for procedural reasons that not all the funding envisaged by the Italian government (8 million euros) has been transferred.
The Trauma Hospital now has a new emergency laboratory, a new CT scanner and is awaiting another scanner. “Until recently, we could not carry out key examinations, especially for suspected thrombosis. Equipment such as the new scanner has made the work much easier,” one doctor said, adding that investment in this equipment should not stop here but continue with other devices to complete the necessary medical infrastructure.
“We also need a good ultrasound machine, medical records need to be digitized, and so on. We should not stop at one piece of equipment; the whole range needs to be provided.” There has also been action on medicines, and the hospital’s drug supply has improved. But these are not the only essential elements that make a hospital a hospital.
There is a lack of space. Space is lacking both for doctors and for patients’ visitors. Some doctors do not have rooms of their own, and there are always people standing in the corridors.
Or lying and sitting on the stairs by the intensive care door. This is how people wait in this hospital. Conditions were like this and remain like this, creating a constant sense of frustration, especially among medical staff, who can change nothing.
Alongside patients, who feel disappointed that the familiar notion that “the Military Hospital is the best” no longer matches what they see on its premises, the doctors themselves are frustrated because none of this is in their hands.
“It has made us stop loving our profession. Beyond the corruption and incompetence that have stained our white coats, we also have to face conditions like these,” hospital doctors say. A concrete picture of the situation can be seen in the hospital storeroom, which at first glance is nothing but a scrapyard of broken beds and shattered cabinets. “The atmosphere is the same as it was. Nothing has changed. Some elements have improved, but fundamentally the hospital is what it has always been,” says one doctor, adding that “changing things at the Trauma Hospital requires more fundamental investment, from A to Z.”
SUT: a hospital without an official website
The University Trauma Hospital handles an influx of 70 to 140 cases a day. Its annual capacity is as high as 45 thousand treated trauma cases. The importance of this hospital becomes ever clearer during natural disasters, accidents involving large numbers of people, or major tragedies such as the Gërdec explosion.
In 2012, this hospital passed from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of Health. The change in oversight appears also to have brought a lack of investment, which had hardly been abundant in the past either. Meanwhile, unlike the Mother Teresa University Hospital Center, the University Trauma Hospital does not even have a Facebook or Twitter page, let alone a website of its own through which to communicate better with the public.
The medical services missing from the Trauma Hospital
Shekulli also visited the University Trauma Hospital in December last year. At a time when temperatures had just fallen sharply, patient rooms had no heating. Many people had obtained electric heaters on their own.
In the corridor outside intensive care, relatives had obtained a gas heater and plastic stools to make their wait for news of their loved ones’ health a little more bearable. On the second floor, meanwhile, at one patient room, we came across a door bearing a paper notice: “Caution: the door may fall.” It was broken.
We were told that the cold was also felt in operating rooms, where a constant temperature could not be maintained. In intensive care, conditions were difficult: we found many cases, and staff often worked beyond available capacity. “There are many cases, about 70 a day.
“Imagine: out of the 7 days in a week, intensive care stays full on six,” doctors told us at the time. We were told that about 40 to 42 percent of cases arriving at the University Trauma Hospital were neurotrauma cases, while the rest were locomotor injuries or injuries to the abdomen (belly) or thorax (chest). At this point, we were also told that the hospital lagged behind in equipment and practices that could make better treatment possible.
So-called interventional radiology, for example, was one of the services we were told was not provided at this hospital. It is a service that allows many organ injuries, such as trauma to the liver, spleen and others, to be treated without surgery.
Published in “Shekulli” on 13/03/2015