The Alliance of Albanians and Alternative parties are calling on Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce to resign after a video showed him attending a surgery without scrubs or a mask.

Filipce still hasn’t clarified when and how the recording was made – it could be pre-Covid but still the presence of a person in an operating room without a mask is a major issue. The surgery seems to be a brain operation, and Filipce is seen taking pictures with his phone.

The Minister attended a surgery in plain clothes, without a mask, gloves or cap, as if he walked in from the street. This violates all basic protocols and rules for keeping the operating rooms surgically clean, the opposition parties said in a statement.

Filipce is currently facing calls to be put under a criminal investigation after he attempted to use a shell company registered in American Samoa in the failed procurement deal for Chinese coronavirus vaccines.