Last week the government accepted a proposal by the parliamentary Health System and Social Policy Committee to declare 11 May the National Day of Palliative Care. The proposal is yet to be voted on in the Sabor but it is very likely that it will be supported.
The date chosen for the observance day is a reminder of 11 May 2012, when the first palliative care ward was inaugurated at the Novi Marof Special Hospital for Chronic Diseases, thus marking the beginning of systematic development of the specialist level of palliative care.
According to recommendations by the European Association for Palliative Care, an estimated 50-89% of all terminally ill patients need some form of palliative care, and in Croatia this is 26,000 to 46,000 patients annually.
At least 20% of cancer patients and 5% of non-oncology patients require specialist palliative care in the last year of their life, and the number of necessary palliative care beds is estimated at between 349 and 429, according to the 2017-2020 National Development Programme, after which the new programme was not adopted.
The programme defines three levels of palliative care - a palliative approach, general palliative care, and specialist palliative care.