The patient who together with her husband traveled to Zanzibar is a medical worker employed in the Bitola hospital, but for now she will not face sanctions for being absent from work, although the ban on using vacations, paid and unpaid leave by all employees in the healthcare sectors still in force. This is a Government Decision published in the Official Gazette at the beginning of November 2020.

The Ministry of Health told “Republika” that this is not in their competence.

It is the responsibility of each public health institution in which the health worker or associate is employed to determine when to use the annual leave. That is not in the competence of the Ministry of Health, they say.

Yesterday, TV21 contacted the director of the Bitola hospital Biljana Gagacovska, who answered briefly “I am not informed”.

The couple from Bitola showed symptoms of coronavirus two days before returning from Zanzibar. The 65-year-old man from Bitola with milder symptoms of the virus and kidney damage has been hospitalized in the Struga nephrology hospital since Monday, and his wife, who developed more severe symptoms, is in stable condition in the “September 8” in Skopje.