Skopje, 19 August 2024 (MIA) — Asked if an investigation would be opened into the death of a forty-something woman with COVID-19 who died over the weekend because she had not been admitted to the Infectious Disease Clinic — and also where coronavirus-infected patients who needed mechanical ventilation were being sent these days — Minister of Health Arben Taravari said the woman had had acute leukemia and had been given the appropriate medical care at the Hematology Clinic.

"The patient was treated at the Hematology Clinic according to all protocols and regulations regarding the treatment of a patient with such diseases. The patient was somewhere around 48 or 47 years old, I'm not sure, but that was her age, in her forties," Minister Taravari said.

"She was infected with SARS-CoV-2," he said, adding that it was "a normal infection."

"In the meantime, an anesthesiologist and an infectious disease specialist had been called for a consult and they suggested a course of treatment.

"But we definitely need to know what the patient died of," Taravari said.

He said the dead woman had received additional treatment over the past 3-4 days, "which is usually a difficult period for patients after receiving treatment in acute leukemia."

"There is no medical malpractice," he said. "I guarantee she was given all the medical treatment she needed."

Commenting on allegations that she had not been admitted to the Infectious Disease Clinic's ICU because it was being renovated, Taravari said that it was indeed being renovated and "it is true that we need to renovate certain units."

"We, too, need to work and make conditions better for our patients. I am sure of one thing, however. The cause of the patient's death is not that she was denied intensive care at the Infectious Disease Clinic," Taravari said.

He said all hospitals at the Clinical Center had intensive care units.

"Never has any patient been denied treatment, even when institutions are undergoing renovations. We have to renovate and will continue renovating," he said, adding that conditions in some hospitals were not good so they needed to be made better in the interest of patients.

According to the health minister, there were mechanical ventilators in almost all hospitals.

"I have already requested a written report from both the Hematology Clinic and the Infectious Diseases Clinic to find out what exactly happened.

"As far as I know, the patient was hospitalized and I don't think the main reason [for her death] is that there was no ventilator," the health minister told the press.

On Sunday morning, the opposition party SDSM said in a press release that patients with COVID-19 who needed mechanical ventilation were not being admitted to the Infectious Diseases Clinic's ICU and called on the health minister to investigate these claims.

"After SDSM this morning alerted to the problem regarding admission of COVID-19 patients in need of intensive care ventilation at the Infectious Disease Clinic, this afternoon, sadly, there has been a death case," the party said in a subsequent release.

"A patient who was in severe condition since this morning was not admitted to intensive care at the Infectious Disease Clinic and was also not admitted to the Traumatology, Orthopaedic Diseases, Anaesthesia, Reanimation, Intensive Care and Emergency Center either," the release said, adding that the woman died soon after.

"This is a scandal there has to be responsibility for," the release said. mr/