Association of GPs who lease primary health care concessions (HUKPZZ) announced a one-day work-to-rule strike on Tuesday, in protest against the government's proposed health care bill.

Doctors who operate concessions for primary health care practices will only perform duties covered by the public health care fund (HZZO), which may cut their normal work by half, and is expected to result in longer waiting times at GP practices around the country.

Unless their action produces results, doctors announced they would take to the streets and protest at St. Mark’s square in Zagreb in front of the government building on Wednesday.

The Croatian Chamber of Physicians (HLK) said in a press release that primary health care doctors are opposed to the new bill, scheduled to be approved by the government in June, and have called for Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Health Minister Milan Kujundzic not to adopt it in its current form as it might “cause unwanted consequences for the primary health care system, patients, and doctors”.

The most contentious articles that doctors proposed but the ministry later declined to include in the new bill refer to the abolishing of the current provision that at least 25 percent of GPs must be employed by state-run health clinics, i.e. state employees; and that all practices which are covered by the primary health care service – including dentists, paediatricians, gynaecologists, and others – can also be included into the concession system, which involves private doctors leasing concessions, and getting paid for patients they treat by the state’s health fund.

The rejected articles which aim to liberalise the concession system and allow every doctor to freely choose if they want to run a private practice, or to be a state employee, is a sharp turn from what Minister Kujundzic had previously promised, doctor’s associations said, and added that without introducing these changes the brain drain of doctors is likely to continue.

“Over the last five years, some 600 doctors have left the country, and another 900 have prepared all the documents they need to go abroad,” HLK said in a press release.

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