ZAGREB, April 2, 2019 – Responding to a warning from wholesale drug suppliers that deliveries of drugs and medical supplies to hospitals will be suspended unless a solution is found with the government to settle hospitals’ debts to wholesale drug suppliers, the Croatian Health Ministry said in a statement on Monday that drug supply was not in question.
“The Health Ministry is aware of the big and long-lasting problem of hospitals’ drug debt,” the ministry said, adding that it was working intensively to find a solution to the problem in cooperation with wholesale drug suppliers, the Croatian Health Insurance Institute and the Finance Ministry.
It recalled that owing to financial stability, the government in 2017 secured funds to settle the hospitals’ debt to wholesale drug suppliers in the amount of 1.27 billion kuna. In 2018, the government provided 487 million kuna for that purpose and the HZZO secured an additional 100 million kuna.
“We stress that regardless of the complexity of the problem, citizens have no reason to worry that they will not be able to obtain drugs because the supply of drugs needed by patients is not in question,” the ministry said.
The total debt of hospitals towards the four largest wholesale drug suppliers reached 2.2 billion kuna (300 million euro) at the end of last year, of which 85 percent had matured, and is increasing by 150 million kuna (20 million euro) per month, wholesale drug suppliers said earlier in the day.
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