Since 1994, the retired neurologist, Professor Anica Jusic, from a base in her own apartment in Zagreb has led a team of activists seeking to promote palliative care in Croatia. Their chief focus has been on raising public and professional awareness through a programme of conferences, lectures and symposia, many of which have involved the participation of experts from outside the country. The group is involved in the translation and publication of key palliative care texts into Croatian and has promoted numerous study and educational visits abroad for Croatian doctors, nurses, social workers and volunteers. There is a particular link with Hospice Buffalo, New York State, USA and with Pilgrims Hospice in Kent, UK and the Kent Institute for Medicine and Health Sciences, at the University of Kent.8 The group produces its own newsletter, Bilten [Bulletin], which by its 10th issue at the end of 2001 had grown to 40 pages in length. It has obtained publicity through the Croatian mass media, for example by participating in the international event BT Voices for Hospices.
The key strategy of this group has been awareness raising, education and lobbying of the Croatian Ministry of Health. It has established a working party to promote inter-faculty collaboration in palliative care education at the University of Zagreb and to educate a team of future experts. The Croatian Society for Hospice/Palliative Care is working closely with the Croatian Society of Oncology (established 2001) and special sessions on palliative care have been held at recent oncological conferences.
In March 2002 Professor Jusic was asked to chair a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working group on palliative care, to report to the Minister of Health, which will focus on establishing palliative care within Croatian health law, on funding and service development across the country, and on a national education strategy. There is a particular concern to have hospice/palliative care defined as the responsibility of both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Work and Social Welfare
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