While the country's hospitals face daily overload, staff shortages, and patients lying in corridors due to the system's malfunction, the Ministry of Health's attention was focused yesterday on the MPs' cigarettes.
An anonymous phone call about smoking inside the Parliament premises was enough for the State Health Inspectorate to urgently land in the Parliament bar-cafe. MPs tired from the marathon session had lit cigarettes, causing an argument between Gazment Bardhi and the Minister of Health, Evis Sala. The Speaker of the Parliament intervened, demanding the inspectors leave, admitting that smoking is not allowed, but the procedure was wrong.
But while inspectors were checking the lawns of Parliament, outside the walls of politics, the country was facing a real tragedy: the loss of the life of a 15-year-old, an event that passed almost in institutional silence.
The boy's aunt has reacted strongly, accusing the institutions that neither the police, nor the media, nor any psychologist came to the family. The minor's grandmother had even sought specialized medical help for hours for her grandson who was lying in the hospital. But the Minister of Health had other priorities: she had to appear as a flag bearer for MPs' cigarettes in the parliament cafeteria. Which is certainly an act that should be punished and fined accordingly. But is this show worth it in the face of the alarming state of health? Is it worth all this fuss by the head of parliament and the head of the DP parliamentary group about an action against smoking, when the entire health system is almost in collapse?
How much does it cost the minister to go out and inspect the oncology hospital and the conditions of treatment for patients there? Or does she have to stand out with these ridiculous actions, similar to those of the Minister of the Interior's electric skateboards, while the country is shaken every day by murders?
In this situation, all we can say is: long live the actions and diplomacy, but for duty and civic conscience - hell knows where you've taken it.
