The family of Gordana Dimkovska, the first patient to die from the coronavirus in Macedonia, said that the woman did not receive the necessary help, didn’t even get water when she asked for it, and were told that she died by the cleaning lady.

We went to see her at 9 in the morning at the window of the Kumanovo hospital. We spoke with her and her son who is also hospitalized. They said they were not given anything they asked for, even water, family members told Telma TV. Cause of death was listed as cardiac arrest.

The woman was hospitalized with fever and had difficulty breathing over several days. She tested negative twice and was diagnosed with Covid 19 only after she died. The family denied reports that she and her son were travelling abroad.

Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce said that he asked for a report from the Kumanovo clinic which found pneumonia and had the woman and her son in isolation. “The patient was tested negative twice in two days. After the situation deteriorated, an attempt to reanimate was made but it failed. Given the sudden complication, a post mortem test was done and it was positive to the coronavirus. Yet anther test came back negative. The tests are not always 100 percent accurate”, Filipce said.