In a comment on the introduction of COVID-19 certificates for workers in the healthcare and welfare systems, the head of the KBC Zagreb hospital, Ante Corusic, said on Sunday that an employee who does not have such a certificate and refuses to get tested will not be paid their daily wage.

There will be a number of points at the hospital where one will be able to get tested and have their COVID-19 certificates checked, Corusic said in a comment on new epidemiological rules, under which employees in the healthcare and welfare systems, visitors, and persons escorting patients will have to have digital COVID-19 certificates as of October 4.

KBC Zagreb has around 6,200 employees, and around 1,600 of them do not have COVID-19 certificates or proof that they have recovered from the coronavirus infection. We cannot force them to get vaccinated if they do not want to do it, Corusic said in an interview with the HTV public broadcaster on Sunday, but noted that the situation was under control and that there were checkpoints at the hospital where COVID-19 certificates would be checked and testing would be performed.

He said that he believed that the new rules would nevertheless help raise awareness of the need to get vaccinated.

Asked if possibly stricter penalties stricter wages would be introduced, he said that according to available information, nobody would get fired.

“But those who do not want to get tested and do not have proof of recovery from the disease or proof of vaccination will not receive their daily wage. That wage will go to someone else who will have to come in instead of them on that day,” he added.

Not much will change for patients, Corusic said, as most of the patients who expect to be hospitalised, even those awaiting specific medical procedures available in day hospitals, have their COVID-19 certificates anyway.

Patients with medical emergencies do not have to display COVID-19 certificates upon admission, however, “depending on the situation and their condition, some of them will definitely undergo PCR testing,” Corusic added.

He noted that close to 90% of doctors at the KBC Zagreb and around 56% of nurses had been vaccinated, adding that a more rational approach would be to get vaccinated, thus protecting oneself, patients and one’s own family.

Julije Mestrovic, head of the KBC Split hospital, said that 95% of doctors working at that hospital had been vaccinated or had recovered from COVID-19 as had around 90% of nurses.