CROATIAN NATIONAL REPORT

October 2024

After the Parliamentary elections in Croatia in early summer, the new Government still has not started to resolve outstanding problems with the Trade Unions.

HLS expects negotiations for a new Collective agreement for the Healthcare to start soon,  as well as for  the Basic Collective agreement for the public sector. We also expect to continue work on the Law on the Labor Legal Status of Doctors and  Regulation on the Time and Personnel standards for doctors. At the moment, there is no valid Collective agreement for the Healthcare sector in Croatia, as the old one has expired, and negotiations for a new Collective agreement have not yet begun. According to the Croatian Government decision , the provisions of the old Collective agreement continue to be applied until the new Agreement for the Healthcare sector is signed. In mid-September, HLS sent a request to the Government for an urgent start of negotiations, but we were told that the negotiations will begin as soon as the new Governement negotiating team is equipped.

The Collective agreement for Healthcare is important to doctors because we want to achieve more favorable working conditions, increase some other rights and bring them as close as possible to the rights that exist in other EU countries. It is particularly important for us to achieve better compensation for standby work, which has been very poorly paid for years. The situation is similar with the negotiations for the Basic Collective agreement for the public sector, which is jointly negotiated by all public service unions. We expect an invitation to start negotiations very soon, and the most important result we expect is an agreement between the Government and the trade unions on the increase in the basic salary.

The Law on the Labor Legal status of doctors and the drafting of  Regulation on the Time and Personnel standards for doctors, which I reported on earlier at our conferences, are also still pending. These days, the drafting of the Regulation on rewards for success in the workplace is underway, in the drafting of which the HLS is actively participating.

Croatia, is still struggling with a shortage of doctors, and the situation is particularly difficult among family doctors, who are lacking the most.

Better salaries and regulated working conditions are the basic preconditions for keeping doctors in the public system, preventing doctors from going abroad, but also to the private healthcare institutions, where salaries are significantly higher, working conditions are better, and the workload is incomparable compared to work in public healthcare system.

Finally, the Government of the Republic of Croatia recently presented a plan for a new tax reform, which should soon lead to an increase in doctors' salaries due to tax relief.