ZAGREB, February 12, 2019 - As part of the campaign "A touch that means life", Pampers and UNICEF have raised 450,000 kuna (approx. 60,800 euro) for equipment to be used by parents staying with their children in the 13 neonatal intensive care units in Croatia.

"Premature birth is something parents usually do not expect and it causes a lot of stress," UNICEF Croatia Office head Đurđica Ivković told a news conference.

Around 2,000 children are born prematurely in Croatia every year, and 400 of them need special care. Early skin contact can help save their lives and facilitate their recovery.

Ivković said that until now parents at neonatal wards could only watch their children through the glass, while now they can stay with them and touch and hold them.

The campaign "A touch that means life" started in January 2018 ahead of International Hugging Day, when Pampers photographed people hugging and gave a kuna donation for each hug. In the second part of the campaign, by June 2018 it donated two kuna from each nappy box sold.

More news on the medical care in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, February 11, 2019 - There are about 35,000 Croatians diagnosed with epilepsy and although this disease is now usually successfully treated, some of those patients experience everyday prejudices, the head of the Croatian League against Epilepsy, Silvio Bašić, has told Hina. Croatia has joined in observing International Epilepsy Day, a special event which promotes awareness of epilepsy in more than 120 countries each year. Every year on the second Monday of February people join together to highlight the problems faced by people with epilepsy, their families and carers.

Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder worldwide, and 60 per cent of cases diagnosed with epilepsy have unknown causes. According to estimates made by the World Health Organisation, about 50 million people suffer from this disease.

According to some statistical figures from the recent years, of those 35,000 Croats living with epilepsy, 7,000 of them are children. In Zagreb alone, 800 kindergarten children were diagnosed with neurological problems, including epilepsy, in the past few years.

In 2016, the Zagreb-based "Rehabilitation Centre Silver " launched new programmes for training of instructors for assistance dogs that should become seizure response dog, and this has been the first programme of this kind to be conducted in Croatia.

Tasks for seizure dogs may include the following: find someone to help, activate an emergency response system, stimulate a person to help them "wake up" after a seizure, act as a brace to help the person up, retrieve a phone or medication, physically remove the patient from an unsafe situation etc.

More news on the health issues in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, February 10, 2019 - A donation of 127,000 kuna (17,000 euro) raised during last year's Terry Fox Run charity event was formally presented to the Ruđer Bošković Institute's Laboratory for Hereditary Cancer at a ceremony in Zagreb on Saturday.

The formal presentation of the donation was organised by the Croatian Cancer Society and the Sveti Juraj Association of Cancer Patients as part of events marking the 25th anniversary of the World Day of the Sick.

The donation will be used by the Ruđer Bošković Institute's Laboratory for Hereditary Cancer for analysis of mutation profiles of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer to help in future therapeutic protocols.

Over 2,500 new cases of breast cancer are registered in Croatia annually, of which 200 are of a hereditary nature.

In the last 19 years, the international charity campaign the Terry Fox Run has attracted over 100,000 participants in Croatia. Last September, over 5,000 citizens joined the event at Zagreb's Lake Jarun, organisers said, thanking all the people who supported this charity effort with donations or in other ways.

The Terry Fox Run was organised, among others, by the Canadian Embassy in Croatia and the Croatian Cancer Society under the auspices of the President of the Republic, the Ministries of Health and Science, the State Office for Sport, and the Mayor of Zagreb.

This non-competitive event is organised every year in honour of Canadian athlete Terry Fox, who lost a leg to cancer. In order to raise money for treatment, in 1980 he embarked on a run across Canada, which he called the Marathon of Hope. He ran 143 days, covering 42 km a day, but failed to finish the run because the disease came back, claiming his life at 22. In his memory, the Fox family launched a drive to raise money for the fight against cancer, which is held every year in Canada and over 60 countries across the world, including Croatia.

More news on the Ruđer Bošković Institute can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, February 5, 2019 - The average healthy life expectancy in the European Union in 2016 was 64.2 years for women and 63.5 for men, while in Croatia it was 58.7 years for women and 57.1 for men, show figures released by Eurostat. This represents approximately 77% and 81% of the total life expectancy for women and men.

Life expectancy for women in the EU-28 was, on average, 5.4 years longer than for men in 2016. However, most of these additional years tend to be lived with activity limitations. Men tend to spend a greater proportion of their somewhat shorter lives free from activity limitations.

Across the EU member states, the country with the highest expected number of healthy life years was Sweden – 73.3 years for women and 73 years for men. At the bottom of the ranking is Latvia, with healthy life expectancy being 54.9 years for women and 52.3 years for men.

Eurostat notes that this significant difference can be partly attributed to differences in the criteria some countries use to measure health-related activity limitations.

Countries with an above-average healthy life expectancy mostly have high living standards, but there are exceptions like Bulgaria, which is in the upper part of the ranking, while Switzerland and Luxembourg, countries with the highest living standards, are below the average.

In 20 member-countries healthy life expectancy is higher for women than for men and in seven the situation is reversed.

More news on the health issues in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, February 4, 2019 - Fighting cancer is the government's priority this year, which is why the adoption of a national cancer plan was included in the government's reform plan in order to raise public awareness of cancer as a big public health problem and to improve prevention, check-up rates, diagnostics and therapy, Health Minister Milan Kujundžić said on Monday on the occasion of World Cancer Day.

About 23,000 people are diagnosed with and about 11,000 die of cancer in Croatia every year.

"Today is World Cancer Day which the whole world observes and it's also the beginning of Croatian Cancer Week. Unfortunately, it is estimated that the number of cancer deaths in the world will rise from 18 million to 30 million annually over the next 20 years. In Croatia, about 23,000 people are diagnosed with cancer annually and a similar rise as in the world is predicted," Kujundžić told a press conference.

He said Croatia followed world trends in cancer treatment when it comes to new medication and that last year saw a significant rise in the procurement of diagnostic equipment.

In terms of risk factors and awareness, Croatia is ranked among the worst, while in terms of screening, diagnostics and therapy, it is in the top third of developed countries. Everything should be done to make citizens go to preventive check-ups and screenings as early detection and timely diagnosis make the disease curable.

"We are especially poor when it comes to smoking and it's well-known that one in four tumours is linked to smoking", said the minister.

There are three screening programmes in Croatia - for breast, cervical and colon cancer. Kujundžić said an increase in breast cancer screening rates from the current 60 to 80% would save 3,000 lives in Croatia annually.

According to Croatian Institute of Public Health data (HZJZ), a fifth cycle of inviting women aged 50-59 to mammogram check-ups is under way as part of the National Breast Cancer Early Detection Programme. The turnout is 60%.

The turnout to the early detection of colon cancer, to which people aged 50-74 are invited, is only 21%, while a programme for the early detection of cervical cancer is undergoing reorganisation.

Low-dose CT scanning for lung cancer is expected to begin soon, it was announced.

The head of the HZJZ Cancer Registry, Mario Šekorija, said the number of people with malignancies was constantly rising, mostly due to higher life expectancy and the increasingly high number of elderly people.

In Croatia, there are 170,000 people who had cancer at one point in their lives.

More news on the health issues in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, February 3, 2019 - In Croatia, about 23,000 patients are diagnosed with cancer annually, and this disease takes 11,000 lives in the country every year. The findings of a global survey, which were published last year, show that the cancer survival rates in Croatia were in the lower half of the ranking that includes European countries. The survey covered about 220,000 patients in Croatia.

The data about the five-year survival rates for 15 types of cancers in adults and three in children show Croatia's poor performance when it comes to five types.

Thus, Croatia's lung cancer survival rate is a mere 10%, survival prostate rate stands at 81%, stomach 20%, colon 51%, rectal cancer 48% and myeloid leukaemia in adults 32%.

Furthermore, the country's breast cancer survival rate is 79%, melanoma of skin 77%, and cervical cancer 63%.

On the other hand, when it comes to children diagnosed with cancer, the survival rates are on a par with developed European countries. In Croatia, overall survival rates for children with lymphoma stands at 95%, brain tumours 73% and acute myeloid leukaemia 85%.

Croatia can improve the performance with progress in early diagnosis and treatment of cancers. In the same vein, Croatians are encouraged more and more to undergo cancer screening, which helps to detect cancer before symptoms appear.

Croatia's Croatian League Against Cancer is a member of the Union for International Cancer Control's (UICC) that organises campaigns on 4 February to raise the awareness of importance of cancer research, prevention of that disease and of raising awareness and mobilising the global community to make progress against cancer.

The main slogan for this year's World Cancer Day is "I am and I will".

"2019 marks the launch of the 3-year ‘I Am and I Will’ campaign. ‘I Am and I Will’ is an empowering call-to-action urging for personal commitment and represents the power of individual action taken now to impact the future," says that international organisation.

In 2018, 18 million new cases of cancer were detected, and 9.6 million cancer-related deaths were registered.

World Cancer Day was established on 4 February 2000 at the World Summit Against Cancer for the New Millennium in Paris.

More news on the health issues in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, January 31, 2019 - The leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Davor Bernardić, told a press conference on Wednesday that his party had sent a draft bill on the medical procedure of pregnancy termination to a 15-day public debate and underscored that abortion in Croatia had to be legal, free and accessible.

"We have witnessed individuals and political parties in Croatia advocate banning abortion and taking us back to the 18th century and SDP will stand against discrimination and reactionary forces in society," SDP's leader said.

He announced that the SDP-sponsored bill regulated the right of women to self-determination, freedom to decide to give birth to children or to abort, the right of minors and disabled persons to abortion, abortion legal time limit, the protection of health and lives of pregnant women, counselling prior to abortion, sterilisation, education for everyone, free contraception, choice between surgical or medication abortion, who has the right to perform the procedure, supervision of authorised institutions and clinics, conscientious objection, financing the cost of abortion and penalties for violation of the law.

He recalled that according to the Constitutional Court ruling the Abortion Act has to be amended by the end of February and "Health Minister Milan Kujundžić's announcement that the new bill won't be adopted within the said deadline," Bernardić said, "just shows his attitude toward the Constitutional Court and toward women's rights."

"This arrogant government obviously has no problem with not respecting a Constitutional Court ruling and it would be good for it to explain why it isn't respecting set deadlines, what does it consider to be disputable and what is the problem," Bernardić added.

Responding to reporters Bernardić said that it would "be nice if the opposition had a candidate for the presidential election and that SDP as the strongest opposition party, would have its candidate." Asked whether that might be Zoran Milanović, he said that he first needs to say whether he is willing to run for the presidency after which the party would talk about that and make its decision after the European elections.

More news on the abortion issues in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, January 26, 2019 - The Kolibrići association of parents of children with SMA (spinal muscular atrophy) held yet another protest rally on Saturday, outside the government offices in Zagreb, asking that the Spinraza drug be made available to all SMA sufferers and calling for repealing the Croatian Health Insurance Agency's decision (HZZO) not to make the drug available to patients older than 18 and those on life support.

After the rally, the protesters were received for talks by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Health Minister Milan Kujundžić, his assistant Vili Beroš and representatives of two Zagreb hospitals.

The protest organisers said that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) had approved the use of the drug for spinal muscular atrophy without any restriction by all SMA sufferers, while the HZZO had made a discriminatory decision denying the right to the drug to children on a respirator and SMA sufferers above the age of 18.

They called on the health minister, the government and the HZZO to repeal the decision which they consider to be unconstitutional, noting that they would not give up on their struggle.

Today's protest was the sixth rally held over the past year by parents whose children suffer from SMA and the second one to be held in the capital.

The head of the Kolibrići association, Ana Alapić, said that there are twelve children who suffer from SMA and are on a respirator. There are around 19 adult SMA sufferers, she said, adding that the association did not know their exact number as over the past year and a half that protests had been organised, nobody cared enough to compile a nation-wide register of SMA sufferers. "This makes it clear that there is no awareness that this problem needs a comprehensive and long-term solution," Alapić said.

The protesting parents all said that they would not give up their fight and that the decision not to approve the use of Spinraza by SMA patients above 18 and children on a respirator meant the death sentence for them.

They also called on Minister Kujundžić to provide evidence for his assertion that the drug was ineffective in patients above 18.

Health Minister Kujundžić said that the relevant commission of the Croatian Health Insurance Agency (HZZO) would issue a new opinion on the Spinraza drug in 15 days. "Money was not an issue in the case of 30 other patients and it won't be an issue in the case of these 12 patients, however, the drug cannot be registered by bypassing professional rules," said Kujundžić after the meeting.

"The HZZO Medicines Commission will issue a new opinion in 15 days on what it has found in studies," the minister said, adding that the decision would be made by medical professionals who deal exclusively with spinal muscular atrophy in children and adults. The minister would not speculate as to what the commission would decide.

Alapić said after the talks that she was partially satisfied with the meeting with government officials. "I am partially satisfied but I am aware that we have to wait for the opinion of medical professionals. I believe the opinion will be in our favour," she said.

More news on the medical issues in Croatia can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, January 20, 2019 - The 12th annual edition of Mimosa Day was held in Zagreb's Cvjetni Trg Square on Saturday with an aim of raising the public awareness of the importance of cervical cancer prevention.

Addressing the event, which was launched by the Croatian Anti-Cancer League, the association's leader Damir Eljuga said that he was glad to present some encouraging figures about a drop in the incidence rate of this disease.

In the past, about 380 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer annually in Croatia, while last year the statistics dropped to 280 new cases.

Croatia is within the European average when it comes to cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates, Eljuga said.

This disease can be prevented by regular gynaecological exams, participants in the campaign said.

In developed countries, the widespread use of cervical screening programs has dramatically reduced rates of cervical cancer.

On Mimosa Day, mimosas are sold in the main squares of Croatian towns and cities to raise funds for the treatment of cervical cancer.

The national cervical and gynaecological cancer prevention day is traditionally commemorated on the third Saturday of January, by a public health action known as Mimosa Day.

More health news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, January 9, 2019 - The Croatian Chamber of Nurses (HKMS) said on Tuesday, following media reports about the buying of nursing certificates in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that it will not issue nursing licenses to applicants who have completed retraining programmes in other countries because it believes that the required level of training for the nursing profession cannot be attained that way.

Retraining programmes are not equal to Croatian programmes for obtaining the qualification of a general care nurse and hence cannot result in the same outcomes of knowledge, skills and competencies. The nursing profession belongs to regulated professions for which minimum education requirements are clearly set out in an EU directive, and learning outcomes must be in line with the European and the Croatian Qualifications Framework, the HKMS said.

"By comparing retraining programmes, we have identified substantial differences in professional qualifications and a considerable shortage of hours of theoretical and clinical instruction," HKMS president Slava Šepec said.

The Croatian education programme does not provide for a retraining programme in the nursing profession and such programmes from other countries are contrary to the Regulated Professions and Recognition of Foreign Professional Qualifications Act and the European Commission's Directive 2005/36.

Only licensed nurses can operate in Croatia, and nursing licenses are issued by the HKMS. The training of general care nurses includes at least 4,600 hours of theoretical and clinical instruction during at least three years of professional training.

More news on the medical issues in Croatia can be found in our Lifestyle section.