Macedonia Row Over Cut-price Treatment for Kosovars

Macedonia's Health Minister, Bujar Osmani, has moved to calm a row over claims that sick patients from neighbouring Kosovo will be able to access cancer treatment in Macedonia for the same price as locals.

After saying that the ministry was mulling this option, the minister, an ethnic Albanian, insisted Macedonian citizens would still have priority on the waiting lists.

"We will certainly take in to consideration the capacity of our health system and the best interest of our domestic patients," Osmani said.

Under current regulations, patients who do not have medical insurance pay 1.7 times higher prices for medical services in the state health system. Foreigners pay 2.5 times more than the lower sum. 

The changes that Osmani announced suggested that Kosovo patients would pay the same in Macedonia as local patients without medical insurance.

An opposition legislator, Gjorgi Orovcanec, of the New Democracy party, said the proposal caused justified alarm. “We should be careful, especially at clinics where our capacities are full," he said.

Orovcanec noted that the Skopje Oncology clinic, which treats patients with malignant diseases, has only one machine that beams radiation treatment for cancer patients. The waiting list for it is already several months' long.

"We must have a good pricing policy that will prevent an influx of foreign patients," Orovcanec said. "Our hospitals are in no condition to help our patients and foreigners as well. This will create utter chaos.” 

Macedonia and Kosovo signed an agreement on medical cooperation last year but the exact modalities of the cooperation are yet to be determined.

The health ministry has confirmed that many Kosovars are already seeking treatment in Macedonia for medical services that are lacking in Kosovo but did not disclose exact figures.

The health ministry wants to make Macedonia more attractive destination for sophisticated health services but insists that it will be very careful not to overburden the health system.