Healthcare Support Provided for North Macedonia

Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) has realized the Mobile Clinic Medical Screening Project in cooperation with the North Macedonian Ministry of Health and the Skopje Institute of Lung Disease and Tuberculosis.

The purpose of the Mobile Clinic Medical Screening Project is to help the people who live in rural areas easily access healthcare services during the pandemic, to monitor the state of tuberculosis in the country, and to provide early diagnosis and preventive treatment for the patients who cannot easily reach the central areas.

In addition to providing necessary medical supplies for the hospital, TİKA also supplied technical equipment so that the mobile clinic can carry out its operations. Thanks to the EKG device, hematological counter, infusomat set, defibrillator and other supplies that have been provided, general medical screening will be able to be carried out, as well as x-rays, blood tests and EKG checks.

With the mobile screening vehicle, the team of specialists will provide healthcare services to the areas where the Turkish population predominantly lives, such as Kanatlar, Budaklar, Centar Župa, Plasnica, and Radoviš.

Having taken the floor during the project handover ceremony at the Skopje Institute of Lung Disease and Tuberculosis, the North Macedonian Minister of Health Dr. Venko Filipče expressed his gratitude towards Turkey and TİKA for their support in healthcare services. Filipče stated that lung diseases have increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic and this has left permanent damage in some patients, underlining that this project has become even more important during the time of a global pandemic.

TİKA’s Skopje Program Coordinator Halim Ömer Söğüt, on the other hand, stated that an important majority of their development cooperation activities that have been going on with North Macedonia for many years have consisted of healthcare projects. In his speech, Söğüt underlined that their purpose was to help specialists easily reach certain rural areas by improving the technical capacity of the mobile clinic vehicle and to carry out medical screenings without any setbacks thanks to the preventive treatment activities.