Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

has a

universal health care Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...

system, whose roots can be traced back to the Hungarian-Croatian Parliament Act of 1891, providing a form of mandatory insurance of all factory workers and craftsmen. The population is covered by a basic health insurance plan provided by statute and optional insurance and administered by the Croatian Health Insurance Fund. In 2012, annual compulsory healthcare related expenditures reached 21.0 billion kuna (approximately 2.8 billion euro).

Expenditure

Healthcare expenditures comprise 0.6% of private health insurance and public spending. In 2012, Croatia spent 6.8% of its GDP on healthcare, down from approximately 8% estimated in 2008, when 84% of healthcare spending came from public sources. Croatia ranked around the 50th in the world in life expectancy with 73 years for men and 79 years for women, and it had a low

infant mortality rate Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The under-five morta ...

of 6 per 1,000 live births.

Institutions

There are hundreds of healthcare institutions in Croatia, including 79 hospitals and clinics with 25,285 beds, caring for more than 760,000 patients per year. Ownership of hospitals is shared between the state and the

Counties of Croatia The counties of Croatia ( hr, hrvatske županije) are the primary administrative subdivisions of the Republic of Croatia. Since they were re-established in 1992, Croatia has been divided into 20 counties and the capital city of Zagreb, which ...

. There are 5,792 private practice offices, and a total of 46,020 health workers in the country, including 10,363 medical doctors. There are 79 emergency medical service units that performed more than one million interventions in 2012. The Euro health consumer index placed it 16th in Europe, commenting that it did well with kidney transplants, performing more than 50 per million per year, and speculating that it might become a health tourism destination, as a state-of-the-art hip joint operation can be had for €3000.

Health

The principal cause of death in 2011 was cardiovascular disease at 41.7% for men and 55.4% for women, followed by tumours, at 31.7% for men and 22.8% for women. In 2012 only 20 Croatians had been infected with HIV/AIDS and 6 had died from the disease. In 2008 it was estimated by the WHO that 27.4% of Croatians over age of 15 are smokers. According to 2003 WHO data, 22% of the Croatian adult population is obese. It had the second lowest rate of death from communicable diseases in Europe (12 per 100,000) in 2015.

COVID-19 pandemic

On 25 February 2020,

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

confirmed its first case. A 26-year-old man who had stayed in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

from 19 to 21 February tested positive and was hospitalised at the University Hospital for Infectious Diseases Dr. Fran Mihaljević in

Zagreb, Croatia Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

. The country had a national response to the pandemic, with a crisis headquarters formed by the government, led by the Minister of Health and including contributions from the Croatian Public Health Institute, Andrija Štampar School of Public Health in Zagreb, and other relevant institutions. The crisis management led to a widespread enforcement of

social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dis ...

rules, and later to widespread vaccination campaigns.

References

Sources

External links

European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies - Countrypage Croatia

Džakula A, Sagan A, Pavić N, Lončarek K and Sekelj-Kauzlarić K. Croatia: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2014;16(3):1–162.

Government of the Republic of Croatia. National Health Care Strategy 2012-2020

Croatian Institute for Health Insurance
(Croatian)
Ministry of Health and Social Care of Croatia
(Croatian) * * {{Europe topic, Healthcare in