Skopje, 16 March 2025 (MIA) — An expert panel of doctors is assessing burn patients to decide whether they would be transferred from Kochani and Shtip hospitals to Skopje or to hospitals abroad, Health Insurance Fund director Sasho Klekovski told reporters Sunday, adding that burn specialists from Israel, the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium have offered their help as well.

All of the people with severe burns will be first transferred to Skopje, Klekovski said, and the ones in critical condition would be then sent to hospitals abroad.

The first ones to leave the Skopje Clinical Center were three patients who were taken to the Thessaloniki's Papanikolaou Hospital, Klekovski said, thanking the diplomats and doctors who had made the prompt hospitalization possible.

Also, he said, a Bulgarian Air Force Spartan aircraft arrived to take eight patients, five of them in critical condition, to Bulgarian hospitals.

Two ambulance vehicles from Serbia were taking patients to Nish, and a Turkish aircraft and three ambulances were to arrive from Belgrade, to also transport patients.

There was one patient hospitalized in Sistina and three in Zhan Mitrev, at the patients' own requests to be admitted to private hospitals in Skopje. Both hospitals made their five intensive care emergency vehicles available for transporting burn patients.

Health Minister Arben Taravari said the patients were in stable condition and not in life-threatening danger.

According to Taravari, 13 patients with severe burns have been transported to hospitals abroad, and 117 patients are currently in hospitals in Skopje, Shtip and Kochani.

Of them, 25 patients have been admitted to the Skopje Clinical Center's surgery wards. Another 24 are currently hospitalized at the St. Naum City Hospital in Skopje, 24 at the September 8 City Hospital in Skopje, 31 at the Shtip General Hospital, and 13 at the Kochani General Hospital.

The health minister thanked his counterparts from Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Hungary, and Turkey as well as other health ministers who had offered their help.

Around 20 patients were in critical condition at the moment, Taravari said in response to a reporter's question.

Of the 20, he said, 13 patients had been taken to hospitals in Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Serbia, and the others would remain in Skopje for now.

Thanking health workers, the health minister said there were sufficient medical personnel and medicines for the injured. mr/