Hospitals have kicked into high gear to reduce waiting lists to a maximum of 270 days, reports HRT. The average wait for the first diagnostic examination is 146 days, and for those waiting longer than 9 months for appointments, the Ministry of Health has introduced a central electronic mail where citizens can contact to check and resolve everything.
The waits were much longer before, but thanks to the introduction of additional clinics, work on Saturdays, afternoons, and overtime, significant progress has been made. Božidar Grabant, coordinator for the waiting list of Čakovec County Hospital, says that the lists range from 200 to 250 days. "We hired administrators at all workplaces who called patients. This way, we removed many patients who had done or resolved some examinations elsewhere," says Grabant.
At the Clinical Hospital Centre Zagreb, 6000 patients are waiting for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but not longer than a year, as it was before. With reorganization, a new device has also helped. "We managed to redistribute patients and organize the lists so that all patients are within those 270 days, on average around 240, 250 days," says Assoc. Prof. Dr. David Ozretić, MD, Head of the Department of Interventional Neuroradiology at the Clinical Hospital Center Zagreb. "In my opinion, the biggest problem is that the influx of patients is uncontrolled. There are no real criteria for when someone needs an MRI, when they don't," he adds.
All of this is controlled by the Ministry of Health, and patients who wait more than 9 months for the first diagnostic examination can write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. "It is important that in such an email, we receive concrete data on where, in which institution, and who is involved so that we can check it, and then we will, through the regional offices of the Croatian Health Insurance Fund, investigate such a case and take action to correct such an anomaly," says Hrvoje Jezidžić, Head of the Support, Reporting, and Supervision Service of the National Information Systems Directorate, e-Health Administration.