Healthcare Minister Bekim Sali removed the heads of two clinics in Skopje because they inflated their own salaries and the salaries of some of the staff.

On the chopping bloc is Aspazija Sofijanova, head of the children’s clinic in Skopje, who recently created waves after a messy interview with a journalist who confronted her with evidence of wrongdoing. Sofijanova collected overtime pay for a period of time when she was abroad. She defended the move by saying that she was working over the phone.

Sofijanova was a prominent target of the SDSM party led Colored Revolution – one of the more gruesome allegations that SDSM raised against the Nikola Gruevski led Government in 2015 was that the Government deliberately delayed approving funding for the treatment of a young girl, Tamara, born with serious scoliosis from which she eventually died. Family member tried to assassinate Healthcare Minister Nikola Todorov, and Sofijanova was among those charged with the alleged negligence – the defense was that the case was extremely difficult and that the family refused an offer of surgery in Turkey and demanded a different location.

Despite the heated attacks, Sofijanova quickly developed a good relationship with the SDSM led Government after their powergrab in 2017, and was frequently seen in the company of SDSM leader Zoran Zaev.

The head of the radiology and oncology clinic Nikola Vasev was also dismissed.