Kumanovo, 3 January 2025 (MIA) - The problems in healthcare are substantial and decades-long, but numerous measures are being taken to resolve them, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said in response to reporters' questions about healthcare, during a visit to the Municipality of Veles on Friday. 

Mickoski said around 300 resident doctors will be hired, around a thousand people will be employed across healthcare institutions, not only doctors, but also mid-level medical staff, nurses, technicians, and structural changes and regionalization will be carried out in line with European healthcare. The PM also announced an increase in the salaries of healthcare sector employees, consecutively for the next four years.

"The problems in healthcare that have been accumulating, not for years, but for decades, are substantial. And indeed, in these six or seven months, we are doing many things that were swept under the rug in the past, or I would say ocurred systematically as problems but were not resolved systematically, and now all of this must be resolved systematically at some point," said the PM. 

He noted that the status of about 300 resident doctors is being resolved, also mentioning that one of the priorities is continuing the construction of the clinical hospital in Shtip, and adding that a historic agreement has also been reached with the unions.

"I am pleased with the fact that a large number of doctors who have left in the past period are returning. In December alone, I had the opportunity to talk to five people who are returning to Macedonia from Germany and want to rejoin the healthcare system," said Mickoski.

Mickoski told reporters that employment will be across the country. He reiterated that more than a thousand people will be employed in health institutions, not only doctors, but also mid-level medical staff, nurses, technicians, paramedics, doctors in primary health care, in secondary care who will offer specialist services, noting however that the procedure, which is expected to be completed in January, should be followed through and job announcements should be published.

"This is a dynamic process that constantly requires new solutions, etc., but until we get involved in making real structural changes in the healthcare system in terms of regionalization, we will have problems, we will have shortcomings. We must seriously engage in regionalization and some of the healthcare institutions must reduce the level of, I would say, services offered by hospitals to be polyclinics, etc., etc. If we want all this is to be within the framework of European standards, if we want to have a clinical center in Skopje, a clinical hospital in Shtip, Bitola and Tetovo, we must see which healthcare institutions will grow into polyclinics or health centers if we want to have healthcare according to the European standards," the PM added.

Explaining the concept of regionalization, the PM stressed that clinical hospitals will cover a larger territory and will be at a higher level than hospitals, which is part of the European concept of a healthcare system, adding that structural reforms are necessary for the process. 

Photo: MIA archive