PCR tests aren’t cheap and that has been an understandable bone of contention for the public not only in Croatia but abroad. The fact that a swab up the nose could possibly cost up to 700 kuna and even more was unthinkable for many, especially in a dire economic situation which seemingly had no end in sight. The Andrija Stampar Institute in Zagreb was performing PCR tests repeatedly throughout pandemic-dominated 2020, and is still doing so. A report revealed just how much money those many, many PCR tests translated into.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, if one was to look at the “Statement of income and expenditure, receipts and expenditures” for the period from the 1st of January to the 31st of December 2020, one would notice very high growth indeed in operating income of Andrija Stampar Institute, otherwise the instutition that performed the most PCR tests in all of Croatia, writes Jutarnji list.
Back in 2019, more precisely back when things were normal, the Institute had reported revenues of 96.17 million kuna, while last year they earned a massive 204.6 million kuna, or 2.1 times more. In 2020, the Institute’s accountants recorded a total “Surplus operating income” of 49.5 million kuna, which is about 17 times more than was recorded back in 2019. How is it possible that in the midst of an unprecedented crisis and a global pandemic, a public health institution is 17 times more profitable than it was during a normal business year?
Multiple articles came to light last year which warned that the price of PCR tests in the Republic of Croatia is very high when compared to other EU member states. Here in Croatia, the price of PCR tests ranged from 500 to 1500 kuna, while in Germany the prices stood at 460 kuna. Last year, the Andrija Stampar Institute kept their price of a PCR test at around 700 kuna, and they justified that price with the fact that there are high input costs, ie that they purchase extremely high quality PCR tests.
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