There are 32,000 nurses in Croatia and 80 percent of them work in hospitals.
Introducing the bill, a State Secretary at the Health Ministry, Ante Zvonimir Golem, said that the proposed amendments to the law on nurses were adjusted to EU directives which stipulate that only nurses whose education is in line with EU standards may do that job.
Under those directives, the minimum qualifications of a nurse are nine years of general education and three years of vocational training.
Golem said that in talks with the European Commission Croatia had managed to prove the high level of education, competencies and skills of Croatian nurses.
Goran Beus Richembergh of the Croatian People's Party/Croatian Pensioners Party said, however, that he received letters from as many as three nurses' associations criticising the amendments.
He said the associations claimed the amendments reflected "the deep distrust of the dominant professions in the Croatian health system which see nurses only as unskilled attendants to physicians."
Richembergh also criticised the fact that in order to meet EU directives stipulating minimum ten-year general education and three-year vocational training for nurses, Croatia had decided that that minimum education would comprise of eight-year primary education, four-year secondary education and one year of internship.
According to Golem, in the next ten years the Health Ministry plans to raise the education of nurses from the said minimum education to the level of baccalaureate.