Zagreb - Croatia's parliament on Friday rejected by majority vote a proposal by We Can! to establish an inquiry into the business dealings between private healthcare provider Medikol and the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO).
The vote followed a heated debate between the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and opposition MPs, with the speaker issuing a string of formal warnings over repeated breaches of parliamentary rules.
“Our job as MPs is not to protect the government, the ministry, any political party or, especially, private clinics. Our sole responsibility is to protect the public interest, and there are few greater public interests than public healthcare,” said Ivana Kekin of the We Can! party, who sponsored the motion, ahead of the vote.
The proposed inquiry was intended to establish who made the relevant decisions, on the basis of which analyses and in whose interest, why public hospitals were not provided with PET/CT scanners, and the total amount paid to Medikol since 2007.
Among the issues highlighted as particularly contentious was Medikol’s operations at Rijeka Clinical Hospital Centre. The proposal cited a state audit finding that hospital premises had been leased without a public tender and that the lease agreement had been concluded without the mandatory approval of the Ministry of Health.
Speaking on behalf of the ruling HDZ parliamentary group, Mislav Herman said the party would not support what he described as “party political tribunals” set up to target political opponents.
“You don’t really care about healthcare,” he told MPs from We Can!, urging them to report any suspected wrongdoing to the relevant authorities.
Ivana Kekin responded that she would do so.
After nearly an hour of heated exchanges, parliament rejected the proposal by 83 votes to 40.