Reforms and Challenges of Post-conflict Kosovo Health System.

Abstract

Before its collapse, Kosovo's healthcare system was an integrated part of the Former Yugoslav Republics System (known as relatively well advanced for its time). Standstill had begun in the last decade of the twentieth century as the result of political disintegration of the former state. The enthusiasm of the healthcare professionals and the people of Kosovo that at the end of the conflict healthcare services will consolidate did not prove just right. Although we can claim that reorganization of Kosovo healthcare was a serious push (especially in the first years after the conflict), the intensity of development begun to fall at the latter stages. Although the basic legislation for the operation of the Healthcare System today in Kosovo does exist, the largest cause for the reform stagnation is where the law is not implemented properly and measures are not set as to a meaningful system of accountability. Twelve years have passed by since the 1999 war-conflict and, although, Kosovo has made progress in many other spheres, it has not yet reached to consolidate a health system comparable to those of other European countries. Intending to get out of difficult situation, several healthcare strategic plans have been developed in the past decade in Kosovo, but attempts in this direction have not been particularly fruitful. This script describes the actual Healthcare complexity of a situation in Kosovo 12 years after the end of the 1999 war-conflict. Interconnection and historical background is also looked upon and is described in the flow of events. Finally, the description of transfer competencies from international administrators to the local authorities as well as the flow of strategic planning that took place since 1999 has also been analyzed.