By the end of 2019 Croatia's public health fund HZZO plans to pay wholesale drug suppliers some 500 million kuna (€68 million), or a quarter of roughly 2.1 billion kuna (€284 million) outstanding debt owed by public hospitals for supplied drugs, Health Minister, Milan Kujundzic, agreed with major suppliers on Monday.
“We agreed on the payment of 500 million kuna (of hospitals’ debt) by the end of the year. As for the remaining debt amount, it will be dealt with along the way… On Wednesday we have a meeting with county heads, and we will see what can be done at that level in order to better control the costs. Counties are formally owners of hospitals, and we will see how much they can participate in covering the debt,” said Kujundzic.
Kujundzic added that the government had considered taking a loan to cover the entire debt for all the bills which had matured more than 60 days ago, which totall 2.1 billion kuna. However, “experts will make a decision on the matter,” Kujundzic said.
As for the long-term solution of the health care system’s accumulation of debts for drugs, Kujundzic said that in the future everyone would have to pay more for healthcare.
“We will all have to give more money, whether through additional health insurance, higher taxes on tobacco… In any case, anyone who seriously thinks (about this issue) is aware of that,” he added.
If the Croatian health care system wants to keep up with the quality and availability of health care in developed countries, the government will have to find more money to fund it.
“With €750 of spending on health care per capita, we cannot have equally good results as others who spend €5,000 per capita,” Kujundzic said.
A representative of wholesale drug suppliers, Tomislav Klobucar, told reporters after the meeting that an agreement had been reached for the public health fund to pay 300 million kuna (€40 million) in October, while another 200 million kuna (€27 million) would be paid by the end of the year.
“That is one-third of what we seek, but the minister gave us hope that at the end of the year there would be a budget revision, and that we would be paid… There is also a third option for the government, to take out a loan, because interest rates are currently low, at 0.1-0.2 percent, so possibly one more part of the debt could be paid, which would be the best solution,” said Klobucar.
Klobucar said that the debt owed to the four largest wholesale drug suppliers, which cover 70 percent of the local drug market, totalled to 2.5 billion kuna (€338 million), or more than 3 billion kuna (€406 million) if debts to smaller suppliers are also taken into account.
(€1 = 7.39 kuna)
