OREANDA-NEWS Twelve grant agreements, totalling slightly less than HRK 575 million, were signed in Zagreb on Wednesday to improve the profitability of and access to day hospitals and surgeries across Croatia.

The grants, to which the Health Ministry will add HRK 100 million, refer to infrastructure works, purchase of medical equipment, and fees related to the implementation of 12 projects approved under the Operational Programme Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014-2020.

The call for the submission of project proposals was opened in mid-July 2016 and will last until the end of 2020. The available grants total slightly less than HRK 726 million.

Attending the signing ceremony was also Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who expressed satisfaction that many good and useful projects designed to improve the health system had been submitted in a short period of time. He commended the good cooperation between the two ministries and the Central Contracting and Financing Agency.

Zalac said that an additional HRK 500 million worth of grants would be signed in the next two to three months for projects that had already been submitted, as well as that two more tenders, worth more than HRK 350 million and designed to improve access to primary health care and emergency medical services, would be published.