FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
As the country's economy expanded and the budget collected more revenue, public expenditures for the country's priority sectors, education and health, have decreased in 2022, both in relation to GDP and to general budget expenditures.
Official INSTAT data show that, in 2022, public expenditures in the education sector were 62.9 billion ALL, or 2.9% of GDP.
Compared to 2021, public expenditures on education expressed as a percentage of GDP have decreased by 0.2 percentage points, while expressed as a percentage of total public expenditures, they have decreased by 0.1 percentage points.
Public spending on health was 2.98% of GDP in 2022, according to INSTAT. As a percentage of GDP, they have decreased by 0.44 percentage points compared to 2021, while expressed as a percentage of total public expenditures, they have decreased by 0.90 percentage points compared to 2021.
The two basic public services, education and health, are underfunded in relation to other countries in the region and Europe. Funding in education has high returns compared to other sectors, as it increases the quality and skills of human capital.
A well-educated workforce is able to drive a more advanced economic model. Throughout the three decades of transition, spending has remained at around 3% of GDP.
Meanwhile, learning outcomes in pre-university education have deteriorated in recent years. Following the results of the PISA 2018 program, the skills of 15-year-old students in Albania in mathematics, reading and science have deteriorated in the PISA 2022 test, a global assessment of the skills of 15-year-olds by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries established in 1961 to promote economic progress).
In mathematics, Albania received the evaluation of 368 points out of 472 possible points. From the assessment of the progress of female students in mathematics compared to the PISA 2018 program, Albania has a drop of 69 points, the highest among the 80 countries tested.
For the reading skills of 15-year-old students, Albania was evaluated with 358 points, out of 476 points, which is the average of possible points. Even in reading, compared to the results of 2018, the drop is 47 points.
The results of the PISA 2022 test were even lower than those of 2008.
In the health sector, the situation is more complicated as due to low costs, citizens do not have access to free quality medicines. Reimbursement covers only 35% of the consumption of pharmaceutical products.
The value of imports of pharmaceutical products has increased rapidly from year to year, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased the burden of diseases in the population.
Last year, imports of pharmaceutical products reached 28 billion ALL, about 270 million euros, while the state reimbursement fund was 11.4 billion ALL.
The data show that Albanian patients financed 61% of the value of imported pharmaceutical products out of pocket for the purchase of medications in 2022.
This ratio was worse during the Covid-19 pandemic, where in 2021, Albanians paid out of pocket with 64.5% of the value of pharmaceutical products.
From 2018 to 2021, a total of 46 drugs that treat oncological diseases have been approved, but Albania has accepted only 3 of them in its reimbursement lists.
For the same period, 61 new drugs are used for the treatment of rare diseases in Europe, while in Albania only two of them are included in the reimbursement lists.
Albania's capacities to include new therapies in the reimbursement list have decreased significantly in recent years. For example, during 2014-2017, Europe approved 154 new drugs for use, while Albania accepted 18 of them on the reimbursement lists./Monitor
Lini një Përgjigje