If Croatia's coronavirus vaccination drive continues at its current pace, people above 65 and people with chronic diseases will not get vaccinated until the summer, the national association of GPs said on Wednesday. They also warned that due to haphazard conditions at vaccination dispensaries they might contribute to the spread of the virus.

Croatia recently rolled out an online registration system which anyone can use to apply for vaccination. Applicants are then put on a waiting list, and an automated system notifies them about the time and place of the public vaccination point where they need to show up to receive the vaccine. The plan also involves GPs who will be allowed to dispense vaccines in their own practices.

“Vaccination points at local health clinics and in our offices will become places which contribute to the spreading of the virus rather than places where it is fought, because they are small facilities, and in the current third wave of the epidemic they lack the necessary anti-epidemic conditions,” the country’s main GP association, HUUGO, said in a press release.

They added that they hope that the “competent institutions” would understand that vaccination should be set up at larger venues, where health workers would only perform vaccination without being required to fill out the paperwork as well.

“There are 2,300 GPs in Croatia’s health system, and their average age is 56. Some 80 percent of them are women, 720 are older than 60, and 200 are over 65. That means that the public health system currently relies on 920 doctors (40 percent) who are older than 60 and who do vaccinations, which is unacceptable, they said, and called for giving this job to younger health workers and opening larger vaccination venues.