Croatia abolishes co-payments for insulin pumps for children with diabetes

The Croatian Diabetes Association has recently expressed satisfaction with the abolishment of co-payments for insulin pumps for all children diagnosed with diabetes.

This past Wednesday the Board of the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO) adopted a decision to remove co-payments for insulin pumps for all children with diabetes, including those over the age of 18 who are still in full-time education, CE Report quotes HINA.

Thanking the HZZO, the Association said children in Croatia now have access to diabetes care comparable to that in the most developed European countries.

"This means that if a diabetologist recommends an insulin pump, parents will no longer have to pay high monthly amounts, previously reaching up to €76 per month, just so their child can receive a therapy that enables safer, easier, and healthier growing up," stated the Croatian Diabetes Association, the Zagreb Diabetes Association, and the portal nainzulinu.com.

The HZZO's decision will come into effect in the second half of July.

An estimated 700,000 people in Croatia are living with diabetes, with the number of patients steadily rising and the disease increasingly affecting young people and children, experts warned at an event marking Croatian Diabetes Day, 14 May.

"We have around 450,000 registered diabetes patients, but the actual number is estimated at over 700,000. Each year, we see between 30,000 and 35,000 new cases," Dario Rahelić, President of the Croatian Society for Diabetes and Metabolic Disorders, said at a press conference in Zagreb in mid-May.