Croatian Health Minister Milan Kujundzic told N1 that running the Helth Care Ministry of Croatia is not easy, but he was not surprised by the difficulty of the task. He praised the Ministry for reducing the debt for the first time since 2017 and announced changes in the type of insurance.

Speaking about the changes he implemented and plans to implement in the Ministry, Kujundzic told N1 he was very satisfied with them.

“Our health care system is one of the rare systems that were praised by the European Commission. We received a positive assessment exactly because we achieved a functional linking of hospitals,” Kujundzic said.

“When I came to office I inherited a HRK 8 billion (around EUR 1 billion) debt, and instead of stagnating, we decreased the debt.”

This was the first time since 2017 that the system operated without a loss. Croatia also increased its innovative drug fund by 60 percent.

When asked whether Croatia can maintain the expense arising from the high quality of health care its citizens receive, the Minister said no.

Some changes will have to implemented and the Ministry is looking into all options. The best thing would be to copy the best models from abroad, which have already been developed and applied in practice.

(EUR 1 = HRK 7.37177)