Head of Croatia's chamber of medicine HLK, Kresimir Luetic, who visited the Split University Hospital Centre on Monday said that one in four recently hospitalized persons in Split was a Covid-19 patient, state agency Hina reported.

Over the last five months, this hospital has been under a lot of strain due to high Covid hospitalisation numbers, and no other hospital in Croatia has been faced with such a burden, Luetic said after touring KBC Split.

The current functioning of KBC Split cannot be described as usual and this cannot be tenable in the long run, he said.

The HLK chief called on the authorities to send nurses from other parts of Croatia to Split to support the functioning of the hospital.

Commenting on the current epidemiological situation in the rest of Croatia, Luetic said that the Covid hospitalization numbers were falling everywhere but Split.

There are many reasons for such developments in Split, and one of them is definitely the lowest coronavirus vaccination rate in Split-Dalmatia County, he added, commending KBC Split personnel for an excellent performance despite the difficult state of affairs.

KBC Split head, Julije Mestrovic, said that currently 226 Covid patients were cared for in this institution. Mestrovic said that 24 percent of the hospitalizations were Covid patients and “this is a great challenge for our hospital and our healthcare system in general.”