Vasko Joleski has died: he lived six years with a mechanical heart pump and fought for patients waiting for a donor

Vasko Joleski from Struga, president of the National Association "Brave Heart" ("Hrabro srce"), has died. For more than six years he lived with a mechanical pump that helped his heart pump blood, while he waited for a donor and a transplant.

His fight began in 2011, when he was diagnosed with severe heart failure. In 2020 he was fitted with a mechanical circulatory support device, and from then on his daily life depended on the device, on batteries and on medical equipment.

Joleski didn't use his story only for himself. As president of "Brave Heart", he became a recognisable voice for patients living with mechanical heart support. He spoke publicly about the high cost of treatment, about the problems these patients face and about the need for systemic support from the health system. He constantly reminded people how important organ donation is. "When we get a new organ, we are no longer disabled and unable to work, but able-bodied people who contribute to society," he used to say.

Recently, after years of waiting, a chance for a heart transplant came up. Joleski took it. Had the operation gone ahead, he could have become the first patient on mechanical circulatory support to receive a heart transplant. Before leaving for hospital, he told journalists that if all went well he would give an interview in a week - this time as a man with a new heart. That conversation never happened.

The circumstances of his death are not publicly known, and we will not speculate about them. But the questions he asked remain open. Do patients on mechanical heart support today have a systemic solution for the costs he pointed to for years? And how many people in Macedonia are waiting for a donor organ right now, without anyone speaking up for them as loudly as he did?