At the Bukurešt polyclinic in Skopje's Karpoš district, in the middle of working hours, while he was seeing patients, gynaecologist Dejan Ognenović was attacked in his own surgery. The medical records show a fracture of the second cervical vertebra. A few hours later he began having trouble moving and losing sensation in his arms and jaw.

The attack happened on 16 September. According to the doctor's account, a man walked into the surgery, first threatened him verbally, then struck him in the neck. The case was reported to police the same day.

What lifts this out of the ordinary-incident category is what came before it. Several days ahead of the physical attack, two women in white medical coats walked in and taped black tape over the surgery's CCTV cameras. The internet cable had already been cut. The cameras, however, kept recording independently - and recorded precisely those two women.

The motive the doctor points to

Ognenović says the attack was not isolated. He had been receiving threats beforehand, among them warnings not to "steal patients" from another doctor. The family speaks openly about rivalry over surgeries as a possible motive. He took over the practice under a state concession two and a half years ago.

Will the competition claim hold up? That is for the investigation to establish. But to get to any answer, the investigation first has to be conducted. So far the interior ministry has offered one sentence: that a 56-year-old reported a physical assault at a health facility and that measures are being taken. Not a word about whether anyone has been detained, what the footage showed, or what was done in the days between the cut cable and the broken vertebra.

This is not some far-flung outpost. This is a public polyclinic in Karpoš, in the centre of the capital, with CCTV that captured the attack being prepared. If a case like this is handled with a one-sentence statement, what is left for someone with no footage, no medical records and no family willing to speak publicly?

The family is now demanding a public answer from the institutions: what has been done and what they plan to do about safety. The doctor says he fears not only for himself but for his family. The question left open is why someone working in a health facility under a state concession has to ask it through the media.