Health Minister Vili Beros visited the additional healthcare team from the Health Center of the Split-Dalmatia County in the town of Hvar on Saturday evening, expressing gratitude to primary healthcare physicians for shouldering the burden of providing medical care to tourists.

During the visit, the minister exchanged information with colleagues and listened to suggestions to make the tourist clinics project even more efficient in the next tourist season, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health.

The additional healthcare team in Hvar began its work on 15 July and will continue until the end of August. So far, more than 136 tourists have sought medical care from this team, with 60% of them being domestic tourists, the Ministry reported.

“In order to improve the provision of healthcare services to tourists, the organization of tourist clinics was regulated by the Law on Amendments to the Healthcare Act. This year, tourists were provided with services through the operation of additional temporary teams at health centres in the counties of Istria, Primorje-Gorski Kotar, Lika-Senj, Zadar, Šibenik-Knin, Split-Dalmatia, Dubrovnik-Neretva, Osijek-Baranja, and Bjelovar-Bilogora. Considering the available staff, teams are currently operating at 37 locations, and on a national level, these additional teams at health centres across Croatia had 8,000 visits or provide healthcare services by the end of July,” the statement added.

“As part of the ongoing healthcare reform, there are three extremely important projects for Croatian tourism and the provision of quick medical care to both citizens and tourists. Additional teams have been formed to provide healthcare services to tourists for the purpose of quickly delivering medical care and reducing the increased pressure on the primary and hospital healthcare systems—family (general) medicine practices, outpatient, and hospital emergency services. A helicopter emergency medical service has also been established, which has carried out 491 flights so far, with the Split base alone conducting 238 interventions, in addition to fast boats, the maritime emergency medical service, which has conducted 295 interventions,” Beros said.

He also highlighted the awareness that tourism is the most significant economic sector and that the Ministry of Health, in synergy with the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, is contributing to establishing Croatia as one of the safest health destinations on the global tourist map.

“I thank all healthcare workers for their dedicated work, especially the primary healthcare physicians who bear the greatest burden of providing healthcare to tourists,” the minister said.