Attempts to stop the medical brain drain in Croatia.
The new Regulations on Supplementary Work by Physicians enable doctors who are working more and better than the rest to make additional income, which is certainly one of the motives for doctors to stay in Croatia, which simultaneously protects public health, said deputy minister of health Dragan Korolija Marinić, reports Vecernji List on October 17, 2015.
Given the fact that the licenses for supplementary work cannot be issued to doctors from hospital departments where waiting lists are too long, this is an incentive for the waiting lists to be shortened, said health minister Siniša Varga. The incentives are even stronger since the heads of hospital departments can also work in private practice outside hospitals.
According to calculations by the Ministry of Health, between 35 percent and 40 percent of doctors meet both conditions for supplementary work – they have achieved at least average performance (measured in kuna) in the branch of medicine for which they are seeking the licence and during the previous year they have achieved higher average effect (measured in kuna) than the average gross salary during the period multiplied by a coefficient which depends on their branch of medicine. The Ministry will soon introduce an application which will enable precise calculations.
The Ministry says that they are also preparing mortgage loans with low interest rates for young doctors and nurses, for which three million kuna have been secured for the next year. In addition to favourable housing loans, long-term plans are to equalize conditions in hospitals, in order to achieve working conditions as already exist in those countries to which doctors now want to move.
Minister Varga also noted that there are more than 10 million euros available from cohesion funds for underdeveloped areas, so every young doctor will receive additional 10,000 kuna to work in rural and mountainous areas and on islands.
