The PET Centre Worked for One Day, Then Stopped Again: 15 Cancer Patients Wait Every Day

Last week it was announced that the PET scanner was working again. That patients would be able to book scans. That nine patients a day would be scanned. According to SDSM leader Venko Filipche, the machine worked for exactly one day, scanned around ten patients and then stopped again.

"The PET centre worked for a single day and now it is out of service again," Filipche said at a press conference. By his account, the only PET scanner in the public health system has been down for two and a half months.

The figure he placed next to that is the one worth holding onto. This is about roughly 15 patients a day - people with cancer, in serious condition, whose treatment depends directly on that scan. "That scan determines the therapy, or the modification of the therapy, depending on the stage the disease is at," Filipche said, demanding the machine be put back into service immediately.

The fault and the explanation

The machine was down because of a fault in the cyclotron - the system that produces radioisotopes, without which a PET scan is impossible. The problem was found during routine servicing. Health minister Sasho Klekovski said the fault was the result of improper maintenance by the supplier, plus a specific problem with an oil that is subject to a restrictive regime.

When the machine was brought back online last week, it was made possible by a quantity of radioisotope brought in from Istanbul. Talks are also underway with Sofia about additional supply.

That is the part that exposes the real weakness. The country has one PET centre. It depends on one cyclotron. When the cyclotron is down, the isotope is carried in from Istanbul - meaning the country's most sensitive oncological diagnostics runs on cross-border logistics and a backup plan being negotiated with Sofia while patients wait.

From the other side

VMRO-DPMNE, through MP Aleksandra Nikolovska, responded with plans. They announced construction of an ultra-modern clinical centre that would draw patients from neighbouring countries too, a heated underground passage beneath Ilindenska boulevard connecting the new complex to the "8 September" hospital, plus projects for the clinical hospitals in Shtip and Tetovo and expanded services in Kichevo. The PET centre, they say, will be part of that complex.

The distance between those two statements is what makes the story. One side is talking about fifteen people who cannot get a scan today. The other answers with a vision of a clinical centre that will attract foreign patients. Both can be true at once - but only one of them concerns the person with an oncology consultation booked for tomorrow.

The question is not who is the bigger visionary. The question is who answers for a machine that ran one day after two months of standstill, and whether "improper maintenance by the supplier" carries any consequence at all for that supplier.