AGREEMENT REACHED ON DANUBE AREA PUBLIC HEALTH REINTEGRATION

ZAGREB, July 23 (Hina) - The Croatian health ministry, representatives of local Serb employees in the general hospital of Vukovar, and officials of the UN Transitional Administration in eastern Slavonia (UNTAES), have agreed on a programme for reintegration of the public health of the Danube area into the Croatian National Health Service. Following recent negotiations in Vukovar, another round of talks was held in Zagreb on Wednesday the reintegration programme was accepted by both parties, Croatian Health Minister Andrija Hebrang said at a news conference after the talks. The minister added that the programme was supported by the UNTAES civilian affairs director, Gerard Fischer, by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UN Transitional Administrator Jacques Klein who expressed his agreement with the programme on the phone. "Today's talks have been great progress which creates real prospects that the health system in the UNTAES-controlled area will be soon included into the Croatian public health," Hebrang said. Gerard Fischer told the conference that he was satisfied with Wednesday's talks. The news conference was also attended by Dr. Vesna Bosanac, the Vukovar hospital director in exile, Dr. Rade Popovic who now assumes the post of the hospital director, and WHO officials. Popovic, who was also satisfied with the Zagreb talks, said that the parties harmonised views on all problems. Minister Hebrang said they had concluded that two commission should be set up to solve key issues of the public health reintegration. The two commissions, that are expected to finish their work by October 15, will be supervised by the Croatian health ministry, UNTAES and the WHO. The first commission will check all diplomas and skills of employees in the public health institutions. The other commission will set standards for employment of all current workers in those institutions in the Danube area and for displaced people who had worked there until the Serb aggression (1991). Minister Hebrang pointed to the problem of redundancies in the Vukovar general hospital, the Vukovar health clinic and the Beli Manastir health clinic. In the Vukovar hospital there are now 434 workers. The number of nurses is 130, whereas the number of doctors is 36. The commission would establish who had the right to the job, in line with law and standards of the Croatian national health service, Minister Hebrang said. According to him, others will be granted a six-month transitional period during which each case will be solved. Redundancies can choose employment in sectors outside the public health, or retirement, departure from Croatia if they wish so or the return to other parts of Croatia where they lived before. They can use all benefits under regulations about the social insurance and benefits for the jobless and redundancies. The biggest problem concerning the Vukovar hospital director was solved on Wednesday when it was accepted that Vesna Bosanac would be the director, whereas Rade Popovicć would be an acting director until the commissions did not complete their job in mid-October this year. Hebrang said that after that local authorities and self-government would be asked to elect a new management council of the Vukovar hospital, according to Croatian law, which would propose a new director. We reached full agreement on the reintegration of all services in Vukovar and Beli Manastir into the Croatian health insurance bureau, he said and added that 29 workers would be offered to sign employment contracts on Monday. (hina) mš 231724 MET jul 97