Medical Chamber for Hiring Jobless Medical Staff for COVID Contact Tracing
ZAGREB, October 30, 2020 - The Croatian Medical Chamber on Friday welcomed the Health Ministry's initiative to establish call centres for tracing contacts of COVID-19 patients and suggested hiring over 1,200 medical staff registered with the Employment Service for contact tracing.
As a first step, the Chamber suggests that call centres at public health institutes hire over 1,200 nondoctors who are awaiting internship for contact tracing.
This month, due to the sudden surge in the number of COVID patients, the contact tracing system is bursting at the seams, so the Chamber welcomes Minister Vili Beros's initiative for urgently establishing call centres to step up contact tracing.
An efficient system of testing, tracing and isolating contacts is a prerequisite for establishing as normal a life as possible without the need to impose the strictest measures, the Medical Chamber said.
According to their proposal, non-doctors and non-medical staff would undergo the necessary training before being hired to work at public health institute call centres under epidemiologists' supervision.
Medical Chamber: There Are Few Epidemiologists, They Shouldn't Do Administrative Work
ZAGREB, Aug 14, 2020 - Croatian Medical Chamber president Kresimir Luetic has said that Croatia has relatively few epidemiologists, 150, and that due to the scope of their work and their role in the fight against the coronavirus, it is necessary to relieve the burden of administrative work on them.
"We have been dealing with this crisis for five months, and of the 15,000 active doctors in the country epidemiologists have been working under a special regime during that period. Croatia has relatively few epidemiologists, 150, and several dozen interns who have chosen epidemiology for their specialisation. Compared to the extent of the epidemic, that is not an optimal number," Luetic told the N1 broadcaster on Friday.
He also noted that epidemiologists should be supported as much as possible and that the burden of administrative work on them should be relieved.
Commenting on the latest surge in the number of new COVID-19 infections, Luetic said that he was surprised by the latest figures about 180 new infections.
He said, however, that responsibility for the latest statistics rested with everyone and could not be shifted to any specific institution, and called for responsible behaviour.
