The 2026 summer health season opened today in the city of Durrës, with the activation of 36 summer health centres across the country, where 301 newly appointed doctors and nurses will serve.

At the start of this season, Prime Minister Edi Rama met with the medical teams, appreciating their irreplaceable role in guaranteeing health services for citizens and tourists during the summer months. The Prime Minister stressed that the summer health centres are now a consolidated experience, strengthened every year to respond to the growing tourist flow and the need for quality, professional and humane services across all tourist areas of the country.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Greetings to everyone, and thank you for being here today!

The reason why we are here together, I believe, is connected, on the one hand, with the need to convey to all our citizens the message that our attention, through the structures of the public health service for the season, is high, and, on the other hand, to convey to you the message that your role at this stage of the year is extraordinary, both in terms of the direct duty related to caring for those who knock on the doors of the summer health centres, and also in relation to Albania itself, which, through you, speaks and says something about itself to those who come to the doors of the health centres as foreign tourists.

The truth is that the summer health centres are now a consolidated experience, initiated several years ago with a smaller number of professionals involved, but also with a meaningful result that has made us understand very well both their importance for those who need first aid, and what we need to do better season after season.

In fact, as was said here, this year the number of centres has increased, the number of doctors and nurses who will serve in these centres has increased, because from the reading of last season in this regard, the need to take such a step has clearly emerged, also taking into account that this year we expect the number of tourists to consolidate at least at the level it was last year and, at certain moments of the year, to increase.

The mayor said that the figures from the port speak of an increase, but if we look at the figures as a whole, including the other entries into Albania since January, we have an increase that is as encouraging as it is challenging, and it is very important that all of us together do our best to fulfil the mission in all aspects.

And in the aspect of the centres, I must repeat, it is not simply your daily mission wherever you contribute, but it is also an extra mission, the mission of Albania that those foreigners encounter when they meet you, because you are the ambassadors of the country in this sense.

You are perhaps the only image of the Albanian state that they encounter, while in the other part, naturally, there is nature, there are services, but the state is seen in the uniforms of police officers, it is seen in the uniforms of doctors and nurses when tourists need them.

This is one more reason why, for the good work done in previous years, we must do everything possible to improve it even further and, above all, by placing humanity at the centre of the mission of every day towards those who come and knock.

Naturally, this applies to foreign tourists, but this undoubtedly also applies to others who are residents near the centres or local holidaymakers near the centres.

And bear in mind also the fact that this applies indirectly to the economy of the country itself, because receiving good services, and especially receiving a humane service that is also impressive from the point of view of conduct and professionalism at the door of a health centre, makes a person very positive towards the country where they are, and certainly encourages their return or encourages the arrival of others through their words.

Personally, I have had, on more than one occasion, the opportunity to hear from foreigners their impressions of the service in our hospitals or in the summer health centres, and I say with great pleasure that the impressions have been extremely positive, first of all because of the way the health personnel communicate.

It would be extraordinarily better if these impressions were the impressions of everyone, including local patients or visitors in our health structures, but here, naturally, the picture then becomes more mixed, either because in certain cases precisely humanity is lacking on the part of the white coats, or because in other cases there are many prejudices and a lot of arbitrariness in describing a reality which, to tell the truth, is becoming more positive every day.

I thank you once again for your presence!

I also thank you for facing the sun, while we have so far benefited from the privilege of having the sun at our backs. So this increases the respect for the patience with which you listened, and I very much hope that we will have a very good season in that very important part covered by your profession and which you will cover with the role you have in this mission of yours.

Thank you very much!