The Pediatric Specialty Hospital at QSUNT is the latest addition to the healthcare infrastructure, serving young patients from all over Albania. It offers dignified conditions that meet European standards for medical treatment. For the first time, spaces have been specifically designed for schooling to assist children who require extended stays at the hospital.

The hospital has a capacity of 140 beds and 17 chairs for patients receiving day therapy. It is expected to provide around 35,000 consultations annually, along with over 24,500 specialized diagnostic exams (such as ultrasound, CT scans, X-rays, tympanography, spirometry, audiograms, etc.), and more than 5,000 laboratory tests through pediatric outpatient consultations.

Prime Minister Edi Rama visited the new hospital facilities today, accompanied by the Minister of Health and Social Protection, Albana Koçiu. They met with the hospital’s medical and nursing staff and participated in its inauguration ceremony.

The building consists of five floors—one underground and four above ground—covering a total construction area of approximately 8,200 m². The new infrastructure includes: the Oncohematology Service, where diagnostic and treatment methods have been significantly advanced; the Pediatric Nephrology and Dialysis Service; the Clinical Genetics Laboratory Service, a unique offering for all of Albania, treating pediatric and adult patients with congenital genetic diseases; the Pediatric Specialty Consultation Service; the Physical Rehabilitation Unit (physiotherapy) for pediatric patients; the Pediatric Pharmacy; and more.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Greetings to everyone.

I’m very pleased to be here again for the opening of another facility in this hospital center, where the transformation is now comprehensive, and only a few structures remain to be fully integrated into this transformed system.

I’m also glad that we are giving the doctors and nurses of Pediatrics the chance to work in another structure with higher modern standards. At the same time, with this year’s funding, we will soon complete the transformation of the third structure of Pediatric Infectious Diseases.

This is the year with the highest healthcare budget—1 billion euros—a budget that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. We will do everything we can to implement it with quality, increasing capacities not only here at the Hospital Center but across the entire healthcare network of the Republic.

On the other hand, I am very happy that we have also implemented the partnership project for hospital management. Managers from Turkey have come, and they will stay for a few days at Memorial Hospital before being placed in the hospitals that now have autonomy, including the University Hospital Center Mother Teresa.

I’m also pleased that the partnership program with SHIBA hospital center in Israel is on the right track. Collaborative work at the oncology hospital has begun, and as I’ve said before, it will extend across the entire hospital center. We are also in discussions about opening an Artificial Intelligence lab here, which will be a regional lab, part of the SHIBA lab network.

I’m thrilled that today we can talk about interventions that were truly unimaginable just a few years ago at the Hospital Center, such as surgeries for children with issues that were once only treated abroad.

I’m equally proud to see our doctors at the University Hospital Center performing highly sophisticated interventions with great success. This makes us very proud of all that you do.

In closing, I want to say that we certainly still have challenges to address. We are all mindful of the hard lessons we’ve learned from the past and are determined to ensure that events like those at the Oncology Center do not repeat. But, at the same time, this is an ongoing battle—not just a local Albanian one.

Thank you once again for your work, for your contributions, and for your attention. And I assure you that, despite the significant pay raises we’ve implemented, we don’t believe you are fully satisfied, and we are convinced that you would warmly welcome another increase.

Thank you