Kumanovo's Home for the Elderly, one of the largest in the country, runs on 36 staff. It needs 80. Which means the facility functions with less than half the personnel it requires, and yet cares for over 170 residents from nearly every town in Macedonia. The figure doesn't ask for comment - it is itself an indictment.

There's a shortage of caregivers and nurses, but also entire positions that any normal institution takes for granted: no accountant, no legal advisor, no HR department, no social worker. The administration is held together by just two people. In other words, a facility that cares for the most vulnerable lives on improvisation and on the backs of a handful who agree to carry someone else's load.

Acting director Aleksandar Krstevski said what the numbers already show: „The caregivers and nurses work tirelessly, they give 150 percent for this home to function." A hundred and fifty percent - the kind of math that only applies where the system is absent, so people have to cover with their own health and time what the institution failed to provide.

The home has already notified the relevant ministry and signed memorandums with secondary schools for volunteer support from students. Student volunteers to fill a hole of 44 positions - that's not a solution, that's dressing a wound with a paper napkin. The question is simple and uncomfortable: how long can a state boast that it cares for the elderly, while the care is actually held up by three or four people on the edge of exhaustion? The elderly can't wait for budget rebalances and analyses. They're waiting now.