Macedonia To Scrap Expenses for Hospital Stays

Healthgrouper, a health service research NGO, has called on the Macedonian government to reconsider its plan to scrap charges for hospital stays from the start of next year start, arguing that this could cause negative consequences for the public health system.

The NGO argues that the scrapping of the 'participation' scheme, in which patients currently pay a fraction of the cost for hospital stays with the rest paid by the state, will increase demand and clog up the system, resulting in long waiting lists.

"Participation is a mechanism intended to limit excessive and often unnecessary hospitalisation. This is used across the world, even in countries like Germany, Japan and the United States," Jana Meloska Petrova from Healthgrouper said on Wednesday.

This would force more patients to seek out stays in expensive private hospitals, which might end up being the only beneficiaries from the change, Healthgrouper argued.

If all goes to plan, as of next year, all patients in the public health system will be exempt from paying participation fees for their hospital stays, the Macedonian government said.

This means that "the state budget would cover the 7.6 million euro that the patients so far payed annually for hospital stays", Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told media on Tuesday.

Health authorities insist that this will be a major benefit for patients, especially for the poorer one who cannot pay their fees.

Macedonian law stipulates that the public hospitals cannot charge more than around 100 euros for a hospital stay under the participation scheme, or 65 per cent of the national minimum monthly salary.

While some welcomed the change, others described it as a populist move.

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