June the 30th, 2022 - Porec and several Istrian municipalities have decided to fund the employment of more staff in order to have emergency medical services made available all year.

As Morski writes, the City of Porec and the nearby municipalities of Tar-Vabriga, Funtana, Vrsar, Visnjan, Sv. Lovrec, Vizinada and Kastelir-Labicni recently signed a contract on financing the additional employment at the Teaching Institute for Emergency Medicine of Istria County.

Almost 10% of all Croatian tourist traffic is realised along about 70 kilometres of the coastline of Porec. It's an area which, during the very height of the summer season, goes from 40 thousand inhabitants to hosting about 150 thousand people.

''Unfortunately, the state doesn't recognise that and we have an insufficient number of emergency medical teams, and we're talking about the healthcare services that our fellow citizens have already paid for by paying their taxes into the state budget. In order to have a service equal to other cities of our size in the rest of the country, we came together and decided to set aside about two million kuna a year for something that isn't even within our jurisdiction.

On top of that we're additionally paying for apartments for deficient doctors, the purchase of vehicles, the purchase of equipment, two weeks ago we even paid for the accommodation for additional police officers due to the expressed need for them - all of these are services that should be being provided to us through the state budget, because if we're taxpayers, we the citizens of Porec have already paid. We wonder where the end to all of this actually is because the needs are becoming greater from year to year,'' complained the mayor of Porec, Loris Persuric.

The director of the Teaching Institute for Emergency Medicine of Istria County, Dr. Gordana Antic, pointed out that it's actually only Istria that hasn't received an increase in the latest changes made to the emergency medical care network, unlike other Croatian counties. They have since been doomed to try to find funding for additional teams throughout the year, especially during the summer tourist season.

''Just as an illustration, last year, the Porec health centre had to deal with almost 5,000 interventions throughout the year, and this year we've already reached 3100 incidents. There were 36 resuscitations performed throughout the past year, and this year we've already reached 27. Our volume of work is drastically increasing, especially in the area of ​​Porec,'' Antic emphasised.

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ZAGREB, 30 April 2022 - The central event marking the national day of emergency medical service workers, which has been observed since 2013, was held in Sisak on Saturday, with speakers announcing a motion to adopt relevant regulations and recognise an accelerated retirement plan for emergency medical service workers.

The past two years were very demanding and challenging for workers of the Emergency Medical Service, and for those in Sisak-Moslavina County they were additionally difficult due to the 2020 earthquake, it was said.

The head of the Croatian Institute for Emergency Medicine, Maja Grba-Bujević, said that it is well-known that difficult working conditions and stress affect a worker's working life as well as life expectancy, while emergency medical service tasks are increasingly demanding, which is why the number of employees has doubled in recent years.

She spoke of the professionalism and selflessness of emergency medical teams during the coronavirus pandemic, noting that a survey of nine countries put Croatia on a par with France in terms of efficiency and competence.

To make the service even more efficient, nine boats were procured for emergency situations on the islands, Grba-Bujević said, calling for the establishment of an own helicopter emergency service, noting that so far cooperation with the army and police had been good in that regard.