Press statement of Prime Minister Edi Rama after cabinet meeting on government decision to condition medical student degrees on five years’ work in country:
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Hello everyone!
I am here to deliver a message regarding a very government decision concerning the Medicine University students and the obligation for them to work in the country for a certain period. The Minister of Health will elaborate on the details of the decision, but its essence, I think, is very clear to every taxpayer in the Republic of Albania.
The states funds public university for education and training of young physicians so that it can defend life and ensure health care service to all citizens. Medicine it is not like all other professions but has also to do with the obligation of every state to provide healthcare for its citizens and the right of citizens to obtain healthcare.
At a time when primarily Germany and other rich countries are struggling with their demography, with their aging population, with the ever increasing need for fresh and young human resources that should be imported from abroad and that have become the last stop station for many professionals and many qualified individuals in all fields, doctors and health professionals in this case, it is absolutely indispensable for us to take such a step, which is the most normal and the easiest possible step to be taken, meaning that every medical student who enters the University of Medicine will have to first familiarize himself with the fact that medicine has as many studies’ years as there are, and then in order to be equipped with a diploma, must spend five years in the service of this people. Everyone wanting to study Medicine should fulfill this condition.
The ministers will provide more details, as I already said, but it is absolutely their choice, it is not only a choice.
While for those who will enter the first year there is only one choice, there is no other choice. If they wish to study medicine at the public university, they will have to accept this condition, and it is not a condition, but a new format of the University of Medicine in terms of issuing the degree. Certainly, nothing will fundamentally change in terms of the right to exercise the profession since it starts immediately after 5 years, but they should work here because the Albanian people pay taxes for this. The Albanian people do not pay taxes so that the doctors, who are trained with symbolic tuition fees and in the university which is supported by the taxes of the Albanian people, can leave the country on the day they graduate.
Students currently in the study process, if they want to leave, may now do so, but will have to pay a tax whose details will be made known in future and this tax rate will be determined by the university according to the law, but it will totally cover the cost and the university needs to train a medical student.
– Prime Minister Kurti has refused to meet you in person. Will you travel to Pristina tomorrow?
PM Edi Rama: I appeared before you to announce this decision only. As far as Pristina visit and the whole Balkan tour are concerned, I will speak when time to do so comes, starting tomorrow in Pristina.