The HMS is "an important link in our healthcare system, particularly in light of the future reform and the positioning of Croatia as a safe tourist destination in caring for emergency patients," Health Minister Vili Beroš said.
Currently, an HMS team's response time is up to 10 minutes in urban areas and up to 20 minutes in rural areas in 80 percent of cases, the minister said. In spite of the turbulence caused by COVID-19, the healthcare system is successfully coping with all the challenges and showing its strength on a daily basis, he added.
The director of the Croatian Institute for Emergency Medicine, Maja Grba-Buljević, said that the reorganisation of the HMS had begun in 2009 and resulted in faster, more accessible and more effective emergency medical care and better working conditions and further training for medical workers.
Today we have 21 institutes for emergency medicine and a network of 709 emergency medical teams with doctors, 205 teams with nurses and 31 standby teams in remote areas. The HMS also has one medical helicopter each in Divulje, Krk island and Dubrovnik, Grba-Buljević said.