Health Minister Vili Beros on Monday dismissed the speculation that because the state aims to take over the management of county hospitals some of them might be shut down, adding that the purpose of centralisation is to reorganise the operation of the hospitals in order to increase the quality of the healthcare system.

Speaking to the press during his visit to the Zagreb Clinical Hospital Centre, Beros noted that under the amended Healthcare Act of April this year the founding rights of the hospitals are to be transferred to the state. “But only the founding rights, not the ownership or other elements,” he stressed, adding that “people are not interested in who the owner is, but in how the health institutions are managed.”

“The manner in which the health institutions in Croatia are managed is not the same. In order for us to transform the healthcare system, reorganise the hospital system, we need to have tools to do that. The founding rights are certainly one of the important elements to address this issue to the benefit of both Croatian citizens and the entire healthcare system,” Beros said.

The transfer of the founding rights is not a political issue or an end in itself, but should facilitate further steps in organising the hospital system,” he said and added: “I think we can all agree that it needs reorganising not just because of the financial costs generated, but also because of the results of treatments.”

The health minister dismissed the speculation that the centralisation is aimed at shutting down some of the hospitals. “I can guarantee you that no hospitals will be shut down in Croatia. What we have to do is reorganise the system.”

He said that a study carried out by the Health Ministry showed that in some hospitals individual departments had fulfilled 20 or 30 or 40 per cent of their agreed amount of work. He added that because of the unfulfilled capacity of some hospitals the number of beds had been reduced in order to maintain all departments.

“Everyone would like to resolve their health issue in their own county, but that is not realistic,” Beros said.

He said that one of the reform steps that will guarantee better treatment outcomes will be to create centres of excellence where material, technical and personnel resources will be grouped.