"At this moment, patients are forced to fake symptoms in order to get examined." That sentence wasn't spoken by an opposition MP, but by Milica Kuzmanovska of the patients' association HEMA-ONKO, at the third "Pink Picnic Breakfast" by the Školka stage in Skopje's City Park. In other words: a woman without symptoms has nowhere to get a timely exam - unless she lies that something hurts.

Health Minister Sašo Klekovski, who attended the event, didn't deny the problem. The breast cancer screening programme, according to a State Audit Office report, has failed. "We have to completely rethink the concept, and I hope that very soon, together with Hema-Onko, we will promote a new concept for the screening programme," Klekovski said. When exactly - he didn't say.

The numbers are heavy. Around 1,000 new cases of breast cancer are registered every year, and around 7,000 women are currently in treatment or have been through it. According to the figures presented, breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer death among women in Macedonia, and the mortality rate in 2024 reached 39.4 per 100,000 women - the highest level in the last 15 years.

And this for a disease where, as Ana Marjanović of HEMA-ONKO pointed out, the survival rate for women whose disease is found at an early stage exceeds 99 per cent. Between that 99 per cent and the highest mortality in 15 years stands one thing - early detection. Exactly what, according to Marjanović, the state currently has no functioning programme for.

The minister also had good news: two breast cancer drugs have been moved onto the positive list, so patients on long-term therapy will be able to pick them up at a pharmacy instead of going to the Oncology Clinic every time. Drug supply, he says, is stable, and the ministry is analysing measures to prevent interruptions in deliveries. The patients at the picnic, meanwhile, pointed out that one drug from their therapy is currently missing and that distributors are expected to deliver it by the end of the week. Kuzmanovska said the way oncology therapy is procured "is faulty" and that, together with the ministry and the Health Insurance Fund, they are working on changing the Law on Medicines.

Every year Pink October fills Školka with pink T-shirts and warm messages of support. The question is whether next October women will be going to a screening programme that works - or whether they'll still have to act out symptoms for someone to examine them.