Levica urges Klekovski to secure free access to private PET scanners for oncology patients

Opposition party Levica has demanded that Health Minister Sasho Klekovski immediately secure free access to private PET/CT scanners for cancer patients after the sole state PET/CT stopped functioning more than a month ago.

Levica says the minister has acknowledged the outage but is downplaying it as a technicality, quoting him that “the scanner is not broken, the problem is the cyclotron.” The party argues that this distinction is irrelevant for oncological care: if the cyclotron defect prevents PET/CT imaging, the PET/CT service is effectively unavailable.

Immediate transfer to private centres, paid by the state

The party adds that Klekovski told officials he would consider other measures only after “one or two days” if the problem is not fixed, a delay Levica calls unacceptable. They stress that cancer patients have already lost more than a month and that “cancer does not wait for procedures, export permits and inter-institutional correspondence.” They further note that when the minister admits the situation is a “life‑threatening condition,” an alternative should have been arranged on the day the defect appeared.

Levica rejects the claim that magnetic resonance imaging and other standard methods can simply replace PET/CT. They cite a Canadian study of 3,429 PET/CT examinations in an oncology centre that showed imaging results led to a change in treatment decisions in almost 50% of cases and improved decision‑making in 80% of cases. Other large datasets, they say, show planned treatment changed in nearly 40% of oncology cases. "In other words, a PET/CT result can determine whether a patient receives the right therapy or is treated based on an incorrect assessment," the party warns.

As an immediate measure, Levica demands that patients with a medical indication be referred straight away to private providers without any out‑of‑pocket payment. They propose that the state organise scans in private facilities and reimburse costs at a rate comparable to what the public PET centre would cover, with the expense paid by the Health Insurance Fund.

Longer term, the party says it is unacceptable that the country depends on a single state PET/CT machine. "There must be at least two functional state PET/CT scanners and procurement of a second device must start immediately without further delays or excuses," Levica concludes. Meanwhile, patients are reportedly relying on substitute methods or paying up to 1,300 euros in private centres.

Photo: Sloboden pechat / Dragan Mitreski