UNOPS - Another milestone in improving the healthcare system of Albania!

The inauguration ceremony brought together Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama, Minister of Health and Social Protection Ogerta Manastirliu, the World Bank Country Manager for Albania Emanuel Salinas, UNOPS Albania Country Manager Pamela Lama, the UNOPS Project Team, distinguished doctors, professors of the University of Medicine and healthcare professionals. We hope that this clinic will serve as an example that will be scaled up and replicated in other hospitals across the country

improving access for the Albanian citizens to high-quality healthcare services.

During the inauguration ceremony Minister of Health and Social Protection Mrs. Manastirliu noted: “Today we should feel proud for many aspects, but especially for the short time it took to implement this project. Like never before with a work of this scale

and quality, we fundamentally transformed the Infectious Disease Clinic starting in spring and completing the works in the fall. We really appreciate the World Bank for their support and facilitating complex procedures and UNOPS Albania staff, designers,

architects, engineers, supervisors and construction workers for their professionalism, dedication and attention to details. Thanks to each of you, even though the time limits were tight we were fast and managed to rebuild this hospital in line with the highest

European standards. The commitment by each of you resulted in a real national reference center for infectious diseases in line with the highest standards” “I think this investment is the best way to say thank you to all medical staff who turned into

heroes during the pandemic. By this investment we give the opportunity to all the doctors to work in optimal conditions with the highest international standards, equipment, logistics and necessary infrastructure, so what became a great history throughout the war with the invisible enemy to be inherited to the new generation as an inalienable spirit of the doctors’ work. I strongly believe that this investment will serve to create a bigger synergy and a noble sense of a team who showed themselves in the worst moments of the history of Albanian medicine since the foundation of the Albanian state” noted Edi Rama, Prime

Minister of Albania.

“Today is a very happy day for all of us. This facility is one of the critical pieces of infrastructure that is needed to deal with pandemics. A lot of investment that went into creating a facility that is at the top standard of European services. This is a project upon the request of the Government of Albania, Ministry of Health and Social Protection, but we did it in partnership with UNOPS and this has been a great collaboration, an ability to deliver results very rapidly and in a very challenging environment. This is one of eight hospitals we’re going to be working on. Altogether we expect that this will benefit more than 350 000 people in Albania. Even though it was done in the middle of a pandemic, it shows that whenever we dedicate ourselves we can achieve quite significant results in a very short period of time” noted World Bank Country Manager for Albania Emanuel Salinas.

The renovation works were conducted as a part of the COVID-19 emergency response project, implemented by UNOPS in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Social Protection through a World Bank loan to the Government of Albania.