Dialysis patients say they must reach third-floor clinic with no elevator to get hepatitis B vaccine
A Skopje dialysis patient says around 120 people face barriers to a hepatitis B dose because the vaccination room is on the third floor of Prolet clinic with no elevator.
Silvana Kostić, a long-time dialysis patient from Skopje, says she and dozens of fellow patients are being asked to reach a third-floor vaccination room with no elevator to receive the hepatitis B vaccine — a requirement she calls impossible given their limited mobility.
“From the Dialysis Center PZU Diamed Macedonia, they send us to be vaccinated against hepatitis B at the Prolet clinic in Skopje. The room where vaccination is performed is on the 3rd floor without an elevator. I contacted the head of the center asking that they come to the center to vaccinate us; if necessary we will collect money and pay for transport for their arrival. The response was that they cannot come. How will we, patients in wheelchairs, immobile, with crutches, climb to the 3rd floor at the Prolet clinic? Plus, in this heat, we are 100 percent disabled, some of us. Is there anyone in this society who listens to our problems?”
Kostić says roughly 120 dialysis patients are affected, including a substantial number with serious walking impairments who cannot use stairs or endure the journey to a clinic located on an upper floor without lift access.
What patients propose and what centers say
She argues that if a medical team came to the dialysis centre to vaccinate patients at their place of treatment, the whole process could be completed in a couple of days. “If the medical team came where the dialysis patients are, the vaccination would be finished in 2 days,” she told reporters.
Diaverum, contacted about the complaint, said that while they issue vaccination referrals, the actual administration of the vaccine is carried out by the Center for Public Health and takes place in the latter's premises.
Kostić — who says she has relied on dialysis for years — expressed deep disappointment with institutions and the disruption of support services during the pandemic: “During the pandemic they cut my caregiving, new kidneys won't grow on me!”
Photo: press material from the event
