The mayor of Skopje, Orce Ǵorǵievski, announced that all cancer patients who requested financial assistance and met the conditions have been paid. More than 1,200 people applied to the public call, he says. The call is still open.

The measure is a good one. Help for someone being treated for cancer needs no justification and is not up for debate. What there is room to ask about is everything surrounding it.

What the announcement contains

The statement came via Facebook and is written in a register that is more personal than institutional. „There are moments when words are not enough. Moments when humanity is measured not by what we say, but by whether we extend a hand when someone is at their lowest”, the mayor wrote.

And further: „Behind every number, dear citizens, stands a person. Stands a family. Stand sleepless nights, fear, hope and an enormous struggle.”

That is true. Behind every number stands a person. The problem is that the entire announcement contains no number.

The three figures that are missing

We know that more than 1,200 patients applied. We do not know how many of them met the conditions and were paid. We do not know how much the individual support amounts to. We do not know how much money was paid out in total.

Each of these three figures exists in the City of Skopje's accounts the moment the payment order goes out. Not one of them requires an analysis, a commission or an additional check - they are written into the same document that made the payment possible.

The phrase „everyone who met the conditions” is what keeps the announcement open at both ends. If 1,100 out of 1,200 applicants met the conditions, that is one story. If 300 did, that is an entirely different one - and then the question becomes what the conditions were and why 900 people were left out.

Why this matters with this particular measure

For a cancer patient, time and money are not an abstraction. Therapy, travel to the clinic, a companion who gives up work, medicines not on the positive list - these are costs that run every week. Which is why someone who applied has a right to know how much and when, not just that a community capable of compassion exists.

The payout, according to the mayor, was completed yesterday or will be completed during the day. The call remains open and anyone interested can apply.

All that is left is to publish the table too. It is one page, and it is the only thing that turns a promise into an account.