Women at the forefront of the COVID-19 response in Albania: “We will keep fighting until this virus is defeated”

On International Women’s Day, 8 March, WHO/Europe recognizes the huge contribution made by female health workers to the COVID-19 response. As Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, said in a recent statement, “The face of that frontline health worker we so often talk about is mostly the face of a woman.”

Meet Ms Dumi

One of these frontline health workers is Ms Hëna Dumi, head of the nursing care sector of an Albanian COVID-19 designated hospital. Formerly a university hospital, it was repurposed in March of last year and started treating only COVID-19 patients.

Ms Dumi, its chief nurse, has been fighting the pandemic since the beginning. Although she has worked in the health-care sector for 25 years, she says she never expected that anything on this scale would ever occur.

During the first days of the pandemic, Ms Dumi remembers being deeply shocked at the cases she saw. She put on a brave face for her patients, despite the risk of burnout she and her colleagues faced due to the increasing number of patients being admitted and the emotionally draining hospital shifts.

Currently, just over 110 000 cases of COVID-19 in Albania have been reported to WHO, with the number of deaths now coming close to 1900. The female nurses on the frontline, treating patients and saving lives from the virus, are shining examples of endurance and perseverance in the fight against this pandemic.

One common challenge that health workers like Ms Dumi face is the extreme difficulty of caring for multiple patients at the same time while coping with their own fatigue and fear of getting infected. Ms Dumi admits that it is especially difficult to lose patients to the virus – patients who are more than a statistic, who have already become like members of the family.

Regardless of the taxing workload, stress and anxiety, Ms Dumi is not ready to give up. To her, these difficulties pale in comparison to the joy she feels when a life is saved. This gives her the strength to fight until the virus is defeated. “We have to get this done. We need to do our best and put in some additional effort to bring life back to normal again,” she emphasizes.

Data show that health workers account for 8% of global COVID-19 cases, and that their risk of getting infected is more than triple the risk faced by most of us, the ones they are trying to protect. Five weeks ago, out of the 1.3 million health workers that had been infected with COVID-19, 68% were women.

Empowering our female health workers

Globally, 70% of the health workforce is made up of women as nurses, midwives and community health workers. Progression in this sector, however, is not guaranteed if you are a woman. There are stereotypes and barriers that deter women from moving up the career ladder or getting engaged in the decision-making process.

Distrust and pressure are among the challenges that Ms Dumi has herself faced as a woman in her profession. Closing the gender gap requires collective action. “We need to fight hard for our rights if we are to achieve any progress moving forward in this direction,” she says.

Collective action is required for an effective COVID-19 response as well, and WHO continues to cooperate with a number of national partners in Albania to ensure this, including health authorities, health workers, hospital managers, communicators, logisticians and laboratory technicians.

Protecting health workers who risk their lives saving others in the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring access to vital resources are among the top priorities of the WHO Country Office in Albania and its national partners.