A panel discussion organized by the Women’s Forum of SDSM on World Health Day addressed the state of healthcare and the significance of healthy beginnings, featuring specialists who shared experiences and achievements in the health sector under SDSM’s governance.

Panelists, including Prof. Dr. Ana Daneva Markova, highlighted the critical state of healthcare in 2017, with high perinatal and neonatal mortality rates, but emphasized the significant improvements achieved through investments and a healthcare strategy, reducing perinatal mortality threefold and neonatal mortality to 0.9 in 2023.

Prof. Dr. Maja Manoleva stressed that SDSM’s health policies are investments in the future, asserting that a healthy start is a right for every newborn and care for the youngest is essential for a healthy society.

However, concerns were raised that the current government led by VMRO-DPMNE is neglecting these policies, causing the healthcare system to stagnate, failing to maintain commitment to key policies that reduced mortality and improved health conditions, and neglecting basic needs such as insulin therapy.

Dr. Maja Mojsova Miovska noted the stagnation in transplantation medicine, despite past successes like the first heart transplant in Macedonia, urging the current government not to abandon the established system and trained staff from SDSM’s initiatives.

SDSM affirmed its commitment to proposing measures for healthcare development, emphasizing the need for concrete political solutions and vision to provide citizens with normal and dignified healthcare conditions.