Croatia is in shortage of hospices and palliative care beds and dying patients are often in acute wards where they cannot receive adequate care.

The new health reform envisages an increase in hospital beds for palliative care.

The Ministry of Health reported that as part of the health reform, it plans to reduce acute inpatient capacity, strengthen outpatient clinics and increase the number of hospital beds for long-term treatment and palliative care by 30 percent.

Under the current National Plan for the Development of Palliative Care and the Public Health Network, in all counties, at the primary health care level, there should be 50 palliative care coordinators and 50 mobile palliative care teams that come to patients’ homes and serve as support.

“Nurses and doctors in hospitals can hardly devote themselves equally to dying patients and generic patients who pass through the ward. Therefore, adequate care is often not received in hospital wards,” said Jelena Bilić, coordinator of palliative care at the East Zagreb Health Center.

The highest number of palliative care beds are recorded in the Varaždin General Hospital, including its Novi Marof and Klenovnik locations (89), Zagreb’s Special Hospital for Pulmonary Diseases (51), the “Croatian Pride” General Hospital in Knin (20), and the County General Hospital in Pakrac and the Croatian War Veterans Hospital (17).

The Gospić General Hospital, Čakovec County Hospital, Šibenik-Knin County General Hospital, and Zabok General Hospital have the fewest beds for palliative care (two beds each).

Recommendations by the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) are used to assess the needs for palliative care and capacities for providing palliative care in Croatia, and the estimate for Croatia is that it needs 80-100 palliative care beds per one million inhabitants, or a total of 343-429 beds.

As part of the health reform, the National Plan for the Development of Palliative Care for the period 2023 to 2026 and the implementation of the Palliative Care Program are being finalized.

Through the Program, networking of stakeholders who take care of palliative patients within the healthcare system is planned, as is the empowerment of stakeholders in the healthcare system in the context of human resources in order to ensure the highest quality of care, but also in the context of better management of available human resources.