ZAGREB, 4 Oct 2021 - In a comment on the introduction of COVID-19 certificates for workers in the healthcare and welfare systems, the head of the KBC Zagreb hospital, Ante Ćorušić, said on Sunday that an employee who does not have such a certificate and refuses to get tested will not be paid their daily wage.

There will be a number of points at the hospital where one will be able to get tested and have their COVID-19 certificates checked, Ćorušić said in a comment on new epidemiological rules, under which employees in the healthcare and welfare systems, visitors, and persons escorting patients have to have digital COVID-19 certificates as of 4 October.

KBC Zagreb has around 6,200 employees, and around 1,600 of them do not have COVID-19 certificates or proof that they have recovered from the coronavirus infection. We cannot force them to get vaccinated if they do not want to do it, Ćorušić said in an interview with the HTV public broadcaster on Sunday but noted that the situation was under control and that there were checkpoints at the hospital where COVID-19 certificates would be checked and testing would be performed.

He said that he believed that the new rules would nevertheless help raise awareness of the need to get vaccinated.

Asked if possibly penalties stricter than the non-payment of daily wages would follow, he said that according to available information, nobody would get fired.

"But those who do not want to get tested and do not have proof of recovery from the disease or proof of vaccination will not receive their daily wage. That wage will go to someone else who will have to work in their stead on that day," he added.

Ćorušić noted that not much would change for patients.

Most of the patients who expect to be hospitalized, even those awaiting specific medical procedures available in day hospitals, have COVID-19 certificates anyway, he said.

Patients with medical emergencies do not have to display COVID-19 certificates upon admission, however, "depending on the situation and their condition, some of them will definitely undergo PCR testing," Ćorušić added.

He noted that close to 90% of doctors at the KBC Zagreb and around 56% of nurses had been vaccinated, adding that a more rational approach would be to get vaccinated, thus protecting oneself, patients, and one's own family.

Julije Meštrović, head of the KBC Split hospital, said that 95% of doctors working at that hospital had been vaccinated or had recovered from COVID-19 as had around 90% of nurses.

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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.

ZAGREB, October 30, 2020 - Doctors and nurses at Zagreb's KB Dubrava hospital held a protest rally on Friday because the hospital would be fully converted into an institution for the treatment of COVID positive patients.

Ivana Suton, the representative of the Nurses' Union at the hospital, said that the protest was not organised by any of the unions but by staff gathering spontaneously to express their discontent over the difficult situation considering the large influx of patients and the shortage of staff.

The protesters were also addressed by Silvio Basic, the new chairman of the hospital's management board and state secretary at the Ministry of Health. He said later that the protesters had drawn his attention to the problems troubling them, such as care for their own health and the health of patients, and the lack of information.

Basic said that all 80 or so patients not suffering from COVID would be transferred to other hospitals across the city so that KB Dubrava could become a COVID hospital when necessary, which would depend on the number of new cases.

Responding to a reporter's remark that this was precisely why the staff were protesting, because they did not want the hospital to become a COVID institution, Basic said he sympathised with them. "We are seeing this disease for the first time, no one is trained to treat it and, of course, people are scared. But we must be aware as medical workers that we have taken on this risk."

Basic said that efforts were being made to ensure the sufficient number of staff. "Five anaesthesiologists have arrived today, and four more pulmonologists are coming in the afternoon. More nurses are also coming. This is a dynamic process," he said, adding that the hospital had enough ventilators.