President Milanović in Čakovec: Depriving counties of management rights over hospitals is theft of personnel

29. April 2023.
20:35

The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović attended today in Čakovec a special session of the Međimurje County Assembly held in observance of County Day. On this occasion, the President toured the stands at the Međimurje family farm agricultural products fair in the company of his host Međimurje County Prefect Matija Posavec.

The President of the Republic congratulated everyone at the special session on 30 years of smart, sensible and successful management of the county. “Međimurje had a special development path and the current authorities, as well as former ones, deserve credit for that,” he said. President Milanović advocates that people manage their affairs in the localities where they live and believes that he himself has demonstrated this as a politician, currently as the President of the Republic and formerly as Prime Minister.

Since Međimurje County Day is marked on the day on which the two great Croat noble families, the Zrinskis and the Frankopans, were executed, the President spoke about their significance. “It was they who had a critical and instrumental role in preserving the Croathood, and the role of these two families in creating consciousness and literacy through a paper trail is immeasurable. Let us not forget that both families came from the south, the cradle of the identity of the Croatian state,” he underscored.

Commenting on the centralization of general hospitals and the transfer of management rights over them from counties to the state, he said that it is an act of forcible, unsubstantiated and greedy centralization. “Depriving counties of management rights over hospitals can only be interpreted as theft of personnel, and then as the political right to decide whether there will be adequate health care in the counties,” President Milanović emphasized. He also added that it is necessary to explain the proposal rationally and through argumentation, since three quarters of financial losses are incurred by health care institutions controlled by the central government.

President of the Međimurje County Assembly Dragutin Glavina and Međimurje County Prefect Matija Posavec spoke at the special session as well, apart from President Milanović.

President Milanović was accompanied in Čakovec by the Adviser to the President of the Republic for Human Rights and Civil Society Melita Mulić.

PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Tomislav Bušljeta