NO ALTERNATIVE TO HEALTH REFORM - SAYS HEALTH MINISTER

ZAGREB, July 14 (Hina) - The health sector is in big structural, organisational, and financial difficulties, and calls for a reform, Croatia's Health Minister Ana Stavljenic-Rukavina told parliament's House of Representatives on Friday outlining a health sector reform draft strategy and plan. She said that even though more than nine percent of Gross National Product was spent on health annually, neither the ill nor health workers were satisfied with the situation in the sector. One of the biggest issues is the sector's 4.2 billion kuna (US$525 million) debt, which calls for a reorganisation of the health care financing and paying system and curbing the growth of health care costs, said the minister. Stavljenic-Rukavina believes it is necessary to set up a standard package of health care services to which all citizens would be entitled, and rationalise the use of medicines for which the Croatian Health Insurance Institute spends two billion kuna (US$25 million) every year. It is also necessary to introduce planning and management in the health sector, improve the effectiveness and quality of health care services, and strengthen preventive and primary health care, said the minister. She added the reform had already begun with the resolving of the financial crisis and the implementation of the pilot-project New Direction of the Health Policy. The minister said every reform entailed many risks and even resistance to it, but that there was no alternative unless one wanted the financial crisis to intensify and the quality of health care to deteriorate. (hina) ha