ZAGREB, April 28, 2020 - The Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Hospital in the Croatian coastal town of Rovinj resumed working on Monday, with enhanced protective measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus being in place.

"Rovinj Hospital is opening its doors and for now the rehabilitation centres will be opened. In cooperation with the Istria County Public Health Institute, we tested all our patients prior to their admission and confirmed that they were negative to the virus," the hospital's director, Dr. Marinko Rade told Hina.

The hospital will strictly restrict movement within the hospital and create an exceptionally safe premises for patients and medical staff alike, he underscored.

"We've prepared high preventative standards that everyone has to respect while the Children's Clinic is being opened under a special regime because children have to be our priority at this moment," Rade added.

Anyone who enters the hospital will have to undergo an epidemiological triage and contactless temperature taking. Security will be at a maximum. We are practically working so that the hospital will be the safest place to be in the city, he underlined.

Rade recalled that the Rovinj Hospital "was and remained coronafree," and that fact has made it possible to reopen its doors in such a short time.

The hospital suspended its activities on 28 March due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

More coronavirus news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, March 2, 2020 - A 150 million kuna loan guarantee agreement was signed on Monday to help the Pula General Hospital, the largest health institution in Istria, to settle its long-term obligations.

The signing ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković during a day-long visit to Istria County.

At its session held last November, the government pledged an additional HRK 150 million to support the construction and equipping of the new hospital in Pula. The state guarantee secured a loan for that purpose from Erste & Steiermärkische Bank.

HRK 600 million was previously secured through two loans for the new construction of the new hospital in Pula. A co-funding loan agreement was signed in July 2011 by the government, Istria County and the Pula General Hospital, under which the central government was to cover 75% of annuities and the county government the remaining 25% throughout the repayment period.

Because of the changes that had occurred during the construction, notably to improve project solutions by applying state-of-the-art technologies in medicine, it was necessary to ensure an additional HRK 150 million.

"The additional funding does not mean the investment has increased in relation to the plan. Under the 2011 agreement, the planned cost of the entire project with construction and equipment was HRK 800 million, and we will reach HRK 750 million," Pula General Hospital director Irena Hrstić told Hina.

More Pula news can he found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, August 28, 2019 - Health Minister Milan Kujundžić on Tuesday said the government would find an additional 150 million kuna necessary to complete the construction of the new Pula hospital.

"Two years ago, the government decided to increase the amount by 300 million kuna for the new hospital in Pula and now due to price increases of building material and equipment, an additional 150 million kuna is needed. That money will be found and I am sincerely pleased that Pula will have a new hospital and better working conditions," Kujundžić told reporters outside Government House after meeting a delegation from Istria County.

Istria County Prefect Fabrizio Radin underscored that they had come across a lot of understanding from Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and the ministers of health and finance. "We will complete the hospital within a year to the benefit of all residents of Pula, Istria, tourists and all Croatia citizens," Radin said.

Pula Hospital's director Irena Hrstić said that she hoped that some new sections of the hospital would be ready to receive patients until the end of this year, as 75% of the construction has been completed.

She underlined that Pula will have a state-of-the-art health institution that will meet the requirements of residents in Istria county and tourists.

In late April, Kujundžić recalled that the government had to date ensured 100 million euro for the construction of the new hospital in Pula which was nearing completion.

More Pula news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, August 12, 2019 - At the start of 2020, the construction of a new healthcare centre with an integrated accident & emergency department (A&E) will begin in the coastal city of Split, the Večernji List daily reported on Monday.

The new centre will specialise in emergency medicine and the acute care for patients, the head of the Split University Hospital Centre, Julije Meštrović was quoted as saying.

Apart from that hospital with integrated accident & emergency services, Split is going to construct a building housing several clinics that will operate on an outpatient basis, according to the newspaper.

Mestrovic said that the money for these two projects would be partly secured from the EU funds.

The new hospital facilities in Split are part of the government's plan for healtcare system which also includes the future national children's hospital at Blato, Zagreb as well as new hospital facilities in Osijek, Rijeka and Pula, the daily reported.

In mid-April, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić signed a framework agreement on cooperation in preparing the project "Building the national children's hospital," which is the first step in implementing the project for the construction of the hospital in Zagreb's Blato neighbourhood.

The government-sponsored project is worth 42.3 million kuna, of which 85% will be financed by the European Regional Development Fund. The rest of the funds will be secured from the state and Zagreb city budgets. The new children's hospital will also provide care in gynaecology and obstetrics. Health Minister Milan Kujundžić said then that new national children's hospital would provide all forms of treatment of children's diseases in one place.

More health news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, July 22, 2019 - An international public tender has been advertised for the construction of a new General Hospital building in Bjelovar, about 80 kilometres northeast of Zagreb, the largest construction project in the healthcare sector in Bjelovar-Bilogora County in the last 40 years.

The tender, worth 165 million kuna, includes the construction of a day hospital and surgery ward, an integrated emergency services reception centre, heat pumps and a waste separation system. 70 million kuna has been secured from two tenders for EU funding, 5 million kuna comes from the Fund for co-financing the implementation of European projects, and the remaining 90 million kuna has been secured by a loan taken by the Bjelovar General Hospital.

The construction of the new Bjelovar General Hospital building is the third such investment in the Croatian health sector after the construction of the general hospitals in Zabok and Pula. It should increase the standard of patient treatment and improve the quality of work conditions for hospital doctors and staff.

More medical news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, May 8, 2019 - A new Gamma Knife device valued at 45 million kuna was officially presented on Tuesday at the University Hospital Centre Zagreb (KBC), which is a huge technological step forward in radiosurgery in this part of Europe.

This "invisible knife" quickly and painlessly treats pathological processes in the brain. The nearest similar apparatus can be found in Vienna or northern Italy or in Moscow to the east, it was said at the presentation.

"We used to conduct 380 gamma knife procedures a year. With this piece of equipment, we will probably achieve 700 procedures a year," the head of the KBC Zagreb neurology department, Zdravko Heinrich, said.

Gramma Knife treatment is covered by Croatia's Health Insurance Institute (HZZO) while patients referred from neighbouring countries pay the full price. "A lot of patients come from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo and we have signed contracts with those countries' health insurance agencies that pay the KBC the full commercial price," the hospital's director, Ante Ćorušić, said.

The KBC Zagreb received support from the Ministry of Health and EU funds to obtain the Gamma Knife and Health Minister Milan Kujundžić and Regional Development and EU Funds Minister Gabrijela Žalac attended the ceremony, expressing their satisfaction with this huge step in Croatia's health system.

Eighty-five percent of the cost of the Gamma Knife was covered by an EU grant from the Competitiveness and Cohesion Fund from which 274 million kuna has been granted for highly sophisticated equipment for Croatian hospitals.

More health news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, February 15, 2019 - On the occasion of International Childhood Cancer Day, marked on Friday, the Neurosurgery Ward at the University Hospital Centre (KBC) in Zagreb received neurosurgical equipment worth EUR 90,000.

The donation was made by the association of parents Love in Action together with the Kraš, Podravka, Atlantic Trade, Jana Pharm and Novartis companies.

About 120 children are diagnosed with a malignant disease in Croatia each year and as many are treated. Treatment takes a long time and is exhausting for the child and the entire family, and it is of exceptional importance to ensure equal access to care, contemporary treatment procedures and prompt psychological support.

KBC Director Ante Ćorušić thanked the donors, while the head of the Neurosurgery Ward, Goran Mrak, underscored that this was an important donation because it enables more precise location of deep processes within the brain during surgery.

The head of the Love in Action association, Ljiljana Vuletić, said that since its establishment in 2010, the association has assisted about 300 families and indirectly helped just as many. The association provides three apartments for families whose children are being treated as well as a vehicle to transport gravely ill children. The association also organises rehabilitation, provides financial aid for families and assists in the exercise of welfare rights.

More news on Croatia’s medical sector can be found in the Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, January 31, 2019 - The City of Zagreb's Office for Emergency Situations has completed the first stage of the project "Satellite Internet - A Back Up System for Emergency Situations", which has helped connect 15 locations, notably emergency services and hospitals, which in the case of a breakdown of standard communication channels will be able to continue with their work with the help of satellite connections, Office head Pavle Kalinić said on Thursday, noting that so far 140,000 kuna had been spent on the project's first stage.

"The project is about a satellite communication system which enables alternative communication and access to the Internet in the case of a failure of the so-called land infrastructure, which happens frequently in major accidents or natural disasters," Kalinić told reporters.

During the first stage of the project, satellite Internet connections were established between all fire departments, the city hospitals of Dubrava, Rebro and Sveti Duh, the City Emergency Medicine Teaching Institute, the "Dr Andrija Štampar" Public Health Teaching Institute, the City Administration, the Zagreb Holding multi-utility conglomerate, the ZET public transportation company and the Office for Emergency Situations.

The second stage of the project, to be carried out this year, will include the instalment of equipment in at least 15 more locations, to connect central voluntary firefighting brigades, community health centres and the "Dr Fran Mihaljević" hospital for infectious diseases, Kalinić said.

Zagreb has launched the satellite Internet project because earthquake is the natural disaster that poses the biggest potential danger for the city. At the moment, the city has around 700 staff trained to intervene in the case of an earthquake, Kalinić said, noting that other towns lacked such staff.

The Civil Protection in Zagreb registered 14,714 interventions in 2018, with last year being an average year in terms of the number of interventions, Kalinić said.

More Zagreb news can be found in the special section.

ZAGREB, November 16, 2018 - The government on Friday accepted a draft framework agreement on cooperation with the City of Zagreb in the preparation of a project for the construction of a national children's hospital within the compounds of what was supposed to be a hospital in Zagreb's Blato suburb.

"This is a historic opportunity for this government to do something that this nation and state badly need. We can now, in partnership with the City of Zagreb, build a new university hospital with its first stage being a children's hospital, instead of just adapting and refurbishing the existing hospitals," Health Minister Milan Kujundžić said.

On 13 September, the Zagreb City Assembly adopted a decision on the conclusion of the framework agreement regulating cooperation in the preparation of the project to build a national children's hospital as the first stage of the establishment of a national university hospital within the compounds of the Blato hospital, whose construction was never completed.

The cooperation refers to the elaboration of a feasibility study and other documents as the basis for applying for project funding from the EU, the minister said.

The 2012-2020 national public healthcare development strategy envisages changes in the organisation and activities of hospitals and the establishment of a national university hospital as an umbrella healthcare institution offering medical services of the highest quality to citizens of Croatia, reads the government decision on endorsing the draft framework agreement.

For more on hospitals in Croatia, click here.

Reacting to an alleged lawsuit announced by the Clinical Hospital Centre (KBC) in Split against MP Ivana Ninčević Lesandrić of the MOST party, MP Arsen Bauk of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) called on Monday on Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković to protect parliamentary deputies from harassment by state institutions.

In the meantime, KBC Split issued a press release denying that it was suing the MP for defamation over the statement she had made in parliament that she had undergone curettage at that hospital without anaesthesia.

"It is scandalous that a state institution is planning to sue an MP for defamation for something that was said in parliament," Bauk said citing the Constitution under which a parliamentary deputy cannot be held criminally liable for expressing an opinion or voting in parliament. "If an institution founded by the state, and KBC Split is such an institution, does not know the Constitution, then at least the Health Ministry, which appointed the hospital's steering committee, should have warned them about it. If they fail to do so, I expect you Mr Parliament Speaker to protect MPs from being harassed by stated institutions for something they said in parliament," Bauk said, calling on Jandroković to warn KBC Split that its actions were unconstitutional.

Večernji List daily reported on Monday, citing unofficial sources, that the Split hospital was planning to sue Ninčević Lesandrić for defamation because she said in parliament that she was traumatized by the curettage procedure she had at that hospital without anaesthesia.

Acting KBC Split director Julija Meštrović told Hina this was not true. "This simply is not true...such claims are malicious and mean," Meštrović told Hina.

Earlier this month, Ninčević Lesandić described her personal experience at the KBC Split after suffering a miscarriage, saying that curettage had been performed on her without anaesthesia. Her statement opened Pandora's box about the treatment of women in many Croatian hospitals.

Soon after Ninčević Lesandrić went public with her experience, the head of the Clinic for Women's Diseases at the Clinical Hospital Centre (KBC) in Split, Deni Karelović, denied her claims that she had undergone curettage at the KBC Split without anaesthesia. "This specific case happened in February when this woman suffered a miscarriage in the seventh week of pregnancy. It is not true that curettage was performed, but vacuum aspiration," Karelović told Hina, adding that the procedure was state-of-the-art treatment and that it was very brief.

If you are interested in more news about Croatia’s health sector, click here.