Skopje, 18 October 2023 (MIA) - Wednesday's session of the Parliament's inquiry committee over the Oncology Clinic scandal ended with testimonies by Eftim Naskov, chief internal auditor at the Health Insurance Fund and Maja Parnardzhieva Zmejkova, director of the Health Insurance Fund from August 2009 to February 2015.  

The two answered MPs' questions in connection with the Oncology Clinic scandal. 

General directors of the Health Insurance Fund and director of the control department, including Faton Ahmeti, Magdalena Filipovska Grashkovska and Cvete Serafimoski also testified at the session earlier in the day. 

Ahmeti, who was General Director of the Health Insurance Fund from October 2020 to August 2023, said that during his time in office several controls were conducted at the Oncology Clinic and all findings have been submitted to relevant institutions including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance and the State Audit Office. 

Ahmeti noted among other that the Health Insurance Fund has no authority to carry out analyses "to the last detail" on how a drug is given to a patient, the dose or the amount, adding that it is the responsibility of the clinic itself.

Magdalena Filipovska Grashkovska also spoke of her time in office, initially six months as acting director, and then appointed as general director. Grashkovska said several controls were carried out and the entire documentation has been submitted to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the inquiry committee and the State Audit Office.  

According to the Law on Health Insurance, she said that the Health Insurance Fund was not an inspection service, it does not have the authority to carry out inspection supervision, and consequently, it does not have the authority to issue penalties.

Filipovska Grashkovska noted that she had no pressure from anyone on any topic.

Cvete Serafimoski, director of the control department at the Health Insurance Fund, told members of the inquiry committee that according to him, it is very important to respect the presumption of innocence. He said he wants to see all suspicion regarding the Oncology Clinic cleared up, see whether the suspicion is founded or not, whether there is political or personal responsibility and so on.

Answering MPs' questions, he said that at the request of the control department, controls were carried out together with the pharmacy department and the finance department, as agreed with the general directors who have also pointed to the need for controls at the Oncology Clinic, and a series of irregularities have been found including, among other, absence of records of drugs issued and then returned due to change in therapy or death of a patient, handwritten doses of therapy issued without records of the date and amount of therapy issued in specialist reports, double billing in cases when relatives of patients have collected therapy on behalf of the patients receiving the therapy, etc.

"I find it unthinkable that someone would take an oncology or biological therapy for the treatment of cancer and resell it elsewhere, while pretending to have cancer. I mean, it's really incomprehensible to me, but the investigative authorities have to determine if there is such a thing," Serafimoski said.

A decision was made on September 20 to set up an inquiry committee to look into the Oncology Clinic case. The Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating the case following media allegations that the Oncology Clinic staff were withholding life-saving medical care from cancer patients and reselling cancer drugs.

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