The HHH (Health Hub Hospital) project was presented in Tirana, a new hospital center to be developed by the San Donato Group, aimed at providing advanced healthcare services according to European standards.

The project foresees the construction of a modern facility specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of complex pathologies, while also aiming to strengthen the capacities of the healthcare system in Albania and consolidate the country’s role as a regional center for healthcare services in the Western Balkans.

Representatives of Albanian and Italian institutions, leaders of the San Donato Group, as well as representatives of the medical community, attended the presentation ceremony.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama: As always, whenever we have Italians among us and in Tirana, I will speak in Italian because, first, I want them to feel at home and, secondly, I do not trust the Italian-language interpreter.

I begin with a very sincere thank-you, because not much time has passed, in fact, only a short time has passed, since the moment we met with the great conductor of the orchestra of the San Donato Group and the GKSD Group, my brother and my friend Kamel, and we shook hands and gave each other our word that we would gather together in Tirana, not far in the future, to begin work on building a hospital of excellence, an Albanian-Italian and European excellence here in Tirana, and to give a new opportunity to all those who seek other ways toward Italy, or toward Turkey and other countries, to receive healthcare for complicated diseases. And here today we are witness to a new chapter for healthcare, because this hospital of excellence will also treat complicated diseases. Thank you, Kamel, because you kept your word. Truly an Italian born elsewhere.

I want to add a very heartfelt thank-you for the presence of a friend, unfortunately from a distance, because we have not seen each other very often, but whom I have always admired from afar. He was a great promise of Italian politics and a friend of Albania: Angelino Alfano, former Deputy Prime Minister and minister with a series of portfolios, who has come more than once to Tirana to show his support for Albania in very important processes, and today he returns to show his support in a very important sector such as healthcare. And now I hope you will return and come more often, because you certainly have an important reason to see first-hand how the works are progressing and how the work is going.

But the great return of the great Ettore Sequi is even greater, because Ettore Sequi is not just any Italian; he is an Italian who can be called the most Albanian of the Italians and the most Italian of the Albanians. So, thank you for returning. We must say that Albania has done you good and brought you luck, because after you were in Albania, you kept going higher, and now you have reached the top, in the empire of the San Donato Group. Thank you, Ettore, for coming back again, and I also want to thank the entire team of the group that has taken care of the project. I apologize to others, but I must single out the legendary engineer who always gives me confidence when I think that the work must be perfect, and I am truly certain that they will be perfect.

Together with the engineer, we have also set ourselves a date, so we hope, from our side, that he will keep his word, because from the construction point of view and everything else, it should be ready by the end of autumn 2028.

So, this is an Italian Albanian forecast, without the Arab push that perhaps makes things happen even faster. Having said all this, I cannot fail to add to these thanks Ambassador Marco Alberti, who is truly a witness to an ever deeper and positive transformation of Italian-Albanian relations, which have always been excellent, which have never depended on the political colors of whoever was in government in Rome or in Tirana, but which recently have taken on a fully and deeply strategic character. And here I want to thank the ambassador, who is making extraordinary efforts to take as many concrete steps as possible toward concrete projects, and this is a concrete project that today we are marking and celebrating together.

It is true that, as my friend Masur also said, we are at a very important moment for our healthcare sector because we need another push forward. We began our work with infrastructure that was outside every standard. We have done quite a lot of work to rebuild. We have done quite a lot of work to open new realities with new standards in our public healthcare system, and we have done a great deal to further encourage doctors and nurses. We have worked a great deal overall to move from a system that was truly a major failure for a long period of years to a system that has begun to journey toward what is, with full legitimacy, the ambition of Albanian citizens. But we still have a great deal of work to do in order not only to guarantee a basic level, but to guarantee quality of service.

And for this, this new reality is very important both as a model and as a point of reference and an important platform for the growth and development of knowledge and human capital that is formed here in Albania. It will not be only a hospital of excellence that comes from abroad, but it will be a hospital where excellence creates the conditions for young Albanian doctors and nurses to grow and serve their own country in a reality that is at the best European levels, and then to move into other directions, toward which the country will be better equipped to serve its own citizens.

I do not want to take up any more time, and I want to close by thanking all the doctors and all the staff of our healthcare service who are present here with us. I must also add that, in these very important moments for Albania, we want to strongly emphasize — and we certainly want to emphasize, the healthcare sector.

The minister said it well: among all the things that citizens today, in Italy, in Albania, or anywhere else, emphasize, there is one thing they emphasize more than anything else, and that is healthcare. And they are right. It is a sector with many challenges, with many difficulties. It is a sector that requires major efforts from the financial point of view, from the point of view of the reforms that must be implemented, but it is also a sector that must have what it needs to rise to the level of citizens’ expectations. This is what we want to do. This is what we are doing today as well.

I am truly grateful to everyone, and I want to close by also thanking the support staff of the working team, the young women and men who accompany all the missions of the San Donato Group outside Italy, which look like delegations of sovereign states that do not have a national flag, but a “flag” of very strong expertise. And for this, we love what you do and admire what you do, and we are truly happy that a part of this “empire,” let us say, will also be present here in Tirana and in Albania, and we will truly be honored to be part of it.

Thank you!