ZAGREB, Jan 21(Hina) - Nikica Gabric, the recently replaced head of the Croatian Health Insurance Agency's (HZZO) Management Board, and Social Democratic Party (SDP) vice-president Zeljka Antunovic on Wednesday dismissed Health
Minister Andrija Hebrang's claim that the debt of the public health system totalled 7.3 billion kuna.
ZAGREB, Jan 21(Hina) - Nikica Gabric, the recently replaced head of the
Croatian Health Insurance Agency's (HZZO) Management Board, and Social
Democratic Party (SDP) vice-president Zeljka Antunovic on Wednesday
dismissed Health Minister Andrija Hebrang's claim that the debt of the
public health system totalled 7.3 billion kuna.#L#
The overdue debts total 1.5 billion kuna and Hebrang has to see that
those debts are paid to hospitals and pharmacies so that payments in
the health system are brought within agreed deadlines and the health
system can regularly meet its obligations towards suppliers, it was
said at a news conference in the SDP offices.
Gabric dismissed Hebrang's report on the debt, saying that "it is not
even on the level of a high school economics report".
He said that wholesale pharmacies did not sue the HZZO or asked that
hospitals' bank accounts be blocked, and called on Hebrang to show the
lawsuits in public.
Gabric says that Hebrang is manipulating the public by speaking about
the 7.3 billion kuna debt, recalling that payment deadlines of 90 and
120 days went back to the time when Hebrang was Health Minister for
the first time.
Antunovic described Hebrang's behaviour as irresponsible and harmful
to the health system, and called on Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to
request an assessment of the situation in the health system and stop
"the destructive campaign" of his minister.
Hebrang's claims that projects of the former government are illegal,
bad and unnecessary are an insult to the medical profession and those
who have been working on them for years, Antunovic said.
"We expect the University, which has supported the construction of a
biomedical centre at Salata (downtown Zagreb), as well as other people
from the health system who have put forward their proposals, to oppose
such an approach," she said.
Commenting on the appointment of Milan Kujundzic, one of the chief
negotiators of the Physicians' Union during last year's strike, as
assistant health minister, Antunovic said it was now evident that the
strike had been endorsed by the incumbent authorities with the aim of
toppling the former coalition government.
1 EUR = 7.7 kuna
(Hina) rml sb