In his introductory note, the Minister of Health Prof. PhD Rajko Ostojić, MD, firmly stated that hospitals have not been doomed to work with losses, but the current debts are due poor and inadequate management applied through years. He illustrated his statement with data on positive changes, especially in the “State managed clinical hospitals, where the past several months witnessed a trend of a decreased debt and almost all state managed hospitals stopped generating losses“.
On the other hand, PhD Maja Vehovec, from the Institute of Economy in Zagreb, presented her conclusion based on the previous year business analysis of all 60 public hospitals. She said that without an urgent and thought-out restructuring of both hospitals, and the Croatian Institute for Healthcare Insurance, their business performance remains economically unsustainable. The minister has been obviously aware of the issues and announced that still in November a model of recovery designed for all healthcare institutions. The model will clearly and precisely set times and holder of activities for the model implementation. He underlined that the Ministry of Health has already implemented a new and more transparent public procurement procedure, suspended private monopoly in certain services offering. Also, intensive activities have been taken on informatization of the system that has already reduced waiting lists, and at the same time supports ant-corruption measures.
That some problems have been present due inadequate application of diagnostic and therapy groups (DTS) proved by an example given by PhD Karolina Kalanj, who explained that correct application of the international DTS method, that can transform an invoice of 17 thousand kunas into a real value service of approx. 1,300 kunas, with no depriving the patient.
