Reader: Hi! I have read your first article and I have some questions about the health situation in Kosovo.

 

The Implementor: Hi! Okay, what do you want to ask?

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Reader: First, what is a Mobile Health Care Centre? Because they sound like moving hospitals.

 

The Implementor: That’s exactly what they are. Mobile Health Centres move around to areas where people who don’t have normal access to health care live and stay there for a short period of time, providing medical equipment and health education.

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Reader: In the article you said that most Kosovar health centres exist in the bigger cities, so it’s difficult for rural-area hard to go to the hospital when they need.

 

The Implementor: Yes, 62% of the population in Kosovo live in rural areas and, although all the municipalities have at least one hospital or various primary health care centres, these are still in the bigger cities and they don’t usually have a lot of staff for all the population. Also have a look at the map of the urban population of Kosovo in 2011 – it hasn’t changed a lot: https://www.efgs.info/wp-content/uploads/conferences/efgs/2016/S8-1_presentationV1_IdrizShala_EFGS2016.pdf). Besides, here is the list of the general hospitals of Kosovo in 2016 and their staff: http://ask.rks-gov.net/media/3709/health-statistics-2016.pdf.

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Reader: I can see why the mobile Health Care Center is necessary… But has it been done in other places?

 

The Implementor: Lots of them. Check for example the ones that the World Health Organization has created: https://www.who.int/hac/donorinfo/2016/mobile_clinics/en/

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Reader: 27 mobile medical centres and 30 ambulances in Iraq and 4 more in Ukraine. And they supported 691 mobile teams in Yemen.

 

The Implementor: A country that has a lot of this units is India, for example, there’s Mobile 1000, with 203 mobile health vans. AGC Cares Foundation has 3 more, RASS has another one… 

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Reader: And only 5 students are going to do one of this in eight weeks?

 

The Implementor: Yes, they will do a lot of research of other successful mobile health centres and interviews to experts and mothers. 

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Reader: Cool. One more question: is 11 deaths per 1000 really a big number?

 

The Implementor: Check this: https://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/data/europe-developed-countries/birth-death-infant-mortality/

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Reader: Alright, if the average of the European Union is 3,6 deaths per 1000 births, then 11,4 is pretty high.

 

The Implementor: Exactly, the second highest one in Europe is Moldova with 9,6, and the highest in the European Union is Romania with 7,6 deaths per 1000 births.

 

Reader: I suppose not everyone can be like Slovenia with 1,6 or Finland with 1,7 births per 1000 births.

 

The Implementor: But this info is a little bit old, from 2015. There’s this other ranking from 2017, where it says that the country with lowest Infant Mortality Rate in the world was Monaco with 1,8 deaths per 1000 births: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

 

Reader: And why didn’t you send me that one?

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The Implementor: Because Kosovo wasn’t in there. I don’t know why, because the same website has another page just talking about Kosovo.

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Reader: Oh, poor Kosovo.

 

The Implementor: Yeah, but have you seen the countries with the highest Infant Mortality Rate?

 

Reader: Right! Afghanistan with 110,6 per 1000 births; Somalia with 94,8, and Central African Republic with 86,3. I hope there are NGOs also helping them like AMC Health is helping Kosovo

 

The Implementor: We are sure there are.

 

Reader: Okay, thank you so much, now everything is clearer.

 

The Implementor: Thanks to you, if you have any other question, just let us now.