Health Minister Vili Beros said at the opening ceremony for the new general hospital in Pula on Friday that everyone should get actively involved in the public consultation on the health reform with affirmative proposals.

The public consultation has been extended for five days, until 8 November, and I call on everyone who has a different view from the current recommendation to get actively involved with affirmative proposals, so that everyone would improve our healthcare system together, he said.

Answering a question from the press about whether the General Hospital in Pula would every become a state hospital, Beros said that this was easily possible, but that it wasn’t his proposal, but a proposal by the European Commission, which, according to him, was obviously familiar with how things function in the healthcare system.

If that happens, it will be done with the intention to help patients because when patients go to hospital, they don’t ask who the owner or founder is but what is the quality of the healthcare provided there, he said.

The transfer of ownership, he said, is one of the options and that is a new form of organisational scheme.

He said that the realisation of the project of Pula hospital was the result of the unity and persistence of all the previous governments and health administrations.

In the hospital in Pula, to which about 160,000 citizens gravitate, the number of acute care beds has been reduced, while the number of day hospital beds has been increased.

That way, the work is done faster, which is extremely important, he said, adding that the citizens of Istria now had now services at their disposal, from magnetic resonance and interventional cardiology to endoscopic procedures.