Skopje, 16 July 2024 (MIA) — A bill eliminating the position of hospital economic director as part of a proposed health care reorganization has passed its first reading by the parliamentary Committee on Healthcare and the parliamentary Legislative Committee on Tuesday.

Minister of Health Arben Taravari presented the proposed changes to the Law on Health Care. He said the law had been in effect since 2007 and the experience of the past 17 years had shown that hospitals were difficult to operate when led by both a medical director and an economic director.

The bill also foresees merging some health institutions. This includes, the minister stressed, the 32 hospitals of the Clinical Center, which would be merged into one.

"This way we will rationalize," Taravari said. "Reducing the number of health institution directors will lead to more effective management." 

"Public health institutions will be more efficient and there will be greater savings in spending on administrators," he said.

European Front MP Ilire Dauti reacted to why the health minister spoke in Macedonian when, she said, he was able to legally speak in his mother tongue. Committee members then exchanged barbs, until Health Care Committee chair Rashela Mizrahi asked them not to turn the discussion into an ethnic issue.

Minister Taravari threatened to leave the session if participants did not stick to health care topics. "I am here to answer questions related to health care. I didn't know you were sent to provoke," Taravari told Dauti.

According to VMRO-DPMNE, eliminating the post of economic director – and there were currently 40 people at these positions – would save the state some two million euros per year.

According to SDSM, the savings would amount to EUR 950,000 per year, but MP Fatmir Bytyqi said he would support the bill nonetheless as it was economically prudent. mr/