Oversights in healthcare administration, which has failed for years to regulate the responsibilities of nurses and medical technicians in emergency teams, are to blame for the tragic death of a young man in the town of Zapresic, said the head of Croatian Emergency Health Services union, Danijel Sota, on Tuesday.

A 22-year-old man had died on Sunday afternoon in the central Croatian town of Zapresic because only a nurse and a medical technician, and not a physician, were present in the ambulance that was called for him.

The training that nurses and technicians receive is not recognised in the Health Ministry due to an internal dispute, and the system collapsed as a result, Sota told the Croatian news agency Hina.

“Because of that, we aren’t allowed to do everything we can,” he added.

He said the problem is not in emergency room training which is adequate, but in the fact that the medical staff has little authority.

The problem is not whether a doctor was present in the ambulance which came for the man in Zapresic, what is important is that the team on the site of the accident must be trained and have the authority to act, he said.

He added that every system has its flaws, and that something should have been done sooner.

The Emergency Service should get a new rule book with new guidelines, he said, adding that the rule book was approved by the government Health Committee in 2016, but the procedure stopped after a new government was elected that same year.

“It was never implemented and is lying in some desk drawer somewhere. Now, when something like this has happened, we talk about what we should have done,” Sota said.

“It’s not important who arrives on site, what’s important is that whoever comes knows what to do,” he said.

“We do have enough people working in the ER. Technicians have the necessary education, and they only need to be better organised, trained, and given the authority to do their job. They are not doctors, and they never will be, but they will have the training necessary to provide the needed treatment,” he said.

The system must be more balanced, he said, and the Emergency Service needs to be brought to a professional level where everything is standardised – from training and preparedness levels, to the number of teams.

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