The Vascular Surgery Clinic at UCCK is facing serious challenges due to staff shortages and long waiting lists for surgical interventions, especially for the treatment of varicose veins.
The director of the clinic, Hajriz Rudari, told "Front Online" that despite the increase in the number of surgeries, the situation continues to be dire due to the lack of anesthesiologists and other basic resources.
"The services for which patients wait from two and a half to three years are diseases of the external veins - varicose veins, which fortunately are diseases that can wait and do not cause any serious complications. The reasons that lead to waiting lists are the lack of anesthesiologists, the place of hospitalization and the growing trend of this pathology (varicose veins)", emphasized Rudari.
Director Rudari says that the pandemic has affected the number of people on the list.
"It should be added that two to three veins are performed during the day, while five to six veins enter the waiting list because the trend of increasing venous diseases is increasing. The pandemic has affected the slowdown in the reduction of the waiting list," he said.
The Director of the Vascular Surgery Clinic, Hajriz Rudari, in a statement to "Front Online" announced that in the first half of 2025 alone, according to Rudari, 244 vein surgeries were performed at the clinic, more than during the entire previous year.
"The number of interventions within the year has increased significantly compared to previous years, with 244 veins performed in the first six months of this year, which is a much higher number of interventions (from venous surgery) compared to the previous year (235 were performed throughout the year), adding that we are also performing interventions with Radiofrequency, which unfortunately, the indication for intervention during selection with this method is very small within the waiting list, for which it is worth noting that 90% are with the classical method (surgery)," he said.
To cope with this situation, the clinic's directorate has presented a special project to the management of UCCK and the Ministry of Health.
"To shorten these lists, we have made a project that we have discussed with the management of UCCK and we expect cooperation to analyze the possibility of implementation within the framework of legal possibilities. We believe that for every project and initiative we will have the support of the management of UCCK and the Ministry of Health, as always for the benefit of patients", declared Rudari.
He added that despite the challenges, the clinic has also made significant progress.
"We have also added as a service for patients for two years the placement of port systems (port-a-Cath) to provide permanent access to the veins of patients with malignant diseases (cancer), which has been very costly for patients and is now placed in the Vascular Surgery Clinic by vascular surgeons without any problems," he declared.
There is no shortage of medicines, according to Director Rudari.
"Regarding the lack of medicines, there is no vacuum or significant and long-term shortage that could interfere with the treatment of patients," he said.
The working situation at the Vascular Surgery Clinic at UCCK, with only 24 beds and a severe lack of staff and basic resources, is becoming increasingly difficult in the face of the increasing number of chronic patients.
This is what the director of this clinic, Hajriz Rudari, stated in an interview with "Front Online".
"As a Clinic, considering that we are currently the only Center in Kosovo that offers treatments and services in the field of Vascular diseases where we have only 24 beds available and we need to expand the service both with places and with an increase in services and considering the increase in the number of patients with chronic vascular diseases (arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, diabetes, hypertension, varicose veins, etc.) due to the modern lifestyle and the increase in the demand for treatment, it is necessary to increase capacities and human resources, also training and maintaining quality staff is a continuous challenge where surgeons must be updated with new vascular techniques", emphasized Rudari.
Rudari says that in addition to limited space, the Clinic also faces a shortage of anesthesiologists and nursing staff, which hinders the normal development of work.
He acknowledged that managing the waiting list remains a serious challenge, even though for some types of diseases there is no active list.
"Another challenge we have is managing the waiting list until its complete elimination. We do not have a waiting list for other vascular disease cases. All of this helps us focus on increasing the quality of health services, where in addition to the narrow scope of action, we also have a real lack of anesthesiologists, a lack of hospitalization places, a lack of nursing staff, delivery staff, and hygiene and sanitation staff," declared Rudari.
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