Open letter from Dr. Jean Mitrev addressed SHGM Chairman Mladen Chadikovski

Dear Chadikovski,

I'd like to start by stressing my support for investigative journalism that you as the Journalists' Association promote. I hope you can maintain high media reporting standards by raising the level of ethics and responsibility of all factors in public life.

Yesterday I read with great disappointment the news of the prize IRL has received about the personal history of my clinic and me. I can say that I didn't expect to receive such a reward for a story where guilt has not been proven and where I have certainly been convicted of such actions before the trial ended. As a person, I'm sure of one thing, that I'm not guilty in all the insurgent cases, and that's why I'm fighting to prove the truth and I'm personally directed to you to help me in this war. My request was simple, to protect your colleagues who are being launched/condemned by their colleagues in trying to present my side of history. I remember you telling me I had to go back to IRL and talk to them about the whole case. I really appreciate your profession and I think that as head of the association you have an obligation to your colleagues, but of course, to the public. And the public has the right to know both sides of the story.

I don't want to go deep in the reasons why IRL's story won a prize at which only two out of the over 1,000 patients who were in our COVID-19 department were shown, I don't want to get into family ties, but I just asked you to keep your position that no journalist should be hindered in his intention to publish information. Even less should be hampered by his colleagues, which happened in the past. Of course, my request is not science fiction, but an expression of support for any journalist who wants to publish an article.

I'm not the one closing the doors, I'm the man who opened the clinic door to help thousands of people. I am not a conflicted man, but I am an emotional person who has invested a lot in this clinic and I am the founder of private health in Macedonia. None of us is perfect, but none of us should judge the other. I know in this case I have nothing to hide, because I didn't commit any crime, no abuse, but time will tell who was on the side of the truth and who on the side of the scheme.

I wish you many more success in fighting for an independent journalist.

With the counter,

Dr. Jean Mitrev. / SMS.