Emergency medicine service at a hospital in Rijeka, Croatia. Photo by Global Voices, CC BY.

At the end of June, a department head at Croatia’s largest hospital was arrested amid a corruption investigation into the purchase of supplies. Dr. Ana Budimir, in charge of the Department of Clinical and Molecular Microbiology at University Hospital Centre Zagreb (also known as KBC Zagreb or Rebro), was taken into custody along with seven others.

The group is accused of favoritism in the procurement of antibacterial water filters purchased from AirMed Solutions. The director of the company, Matija Herceg, was also arrested as part of an investigation by the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) into broader corruption within the healthcare sector.

The filters had been ordered following the deaths of three patients from Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia, in June 2024. Investigators claim that Romana Palić, the head nurse at the Unit for Prevention and Control of Intrahospital Infections at KBC Zagreb, who is close to Herceg, ensured that the hospital continued to purchase goods from AirMed Solutions. They also allege that she and Budimir — who is believed to have received a trip to Paris in exchange for facilitating the rigging of the contract — brought several other hospital employees into the scheme.

After the arrests, Fran Borovečki, KBC Zagreb’s director, held a press conference in which he stressed that “the vast majority of the employees perform their duties conscientiously and responsibly.” The atmosphere at the hospital was already in a precarious state, however, in the wake of similar scandals as well as the tragic death of KBC’s longtime director, Ante Ćorušić, who allegedly fell from the hospital’s fire escape in October 2024 and died instantly as a result of a head injury.

University Hospital Centre Zagreb – Rebro campus. Photo by Suradnik13 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA.

Ministerial involvement

This recent scandal is reminiscent of a controversy that forced the prime minister to reshuffle his cabinet. In November 2024, Andrej Plenković sacked Minister of Health Vili Beroš after he was arrested in an investigation initiated by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).

Beroš was accused of accepting bribes totalling EUR 75,000 (around USD 86,500) from a criminal group, in return for using his influence to facilitate the sale of medical robotic systems at an inflated cost. At the time, Beroš was on a monthly wage of just over EUR 4,600 (about USD 5,300). This specific case is thought to have deprived the state budget of as much as EUR 740,000 (USD 854,000).

Dubbed the “Microscope Affair,” the indictment revealed a convoluted web of murky public-private cooperation, whereby many individuals benefited from the fixed sale of the devices. Two entrepreneurs — Hrvoje Petrač, who previously served time in prison for kidnapping, and Saša Pozder — were alleged to have orchestrated the scheme, in which the proceeds of the arrangement were paid to Pozder’s company, adjusting technical documentation to make it appear as if the inflated price were legitimate.

Petrač, a businessman believed to have mob ties, reportedly bribed Beroš to use his ministerial influence to increase the amount set aside for medical device procurement in the state’s budget. Petrač paid Tomo Pavić, from the Croatian Health Insurance Institute, to act as an intermediary between himself, Pozder, and Beroš.

Subsequently, Petrač asked Beroš to rig the public procurement process and arrange meetings with the directors of county hospitals so that Pozder could display his devices. Proceeds were paid to Beroš out of Pavić’s company as part of a prior agreement to divide the profit. The plan was only uncovered after officials at a hospital in Split refused the bribes offered.

While this is not the first time that a Croatian politician has found himself at the center of a criminal scandal, Beroš’s arrest underscores how healthcare corruption pervades the highest levels of Croatian society.

Vocal government critics include the left-wing green party Možemo! (We Can!), which — via Mayor Tomislav Tomašević — has held control of Zagreb’s city assembly since 2021. The party perceives pervasive corruption to be the sole responsibility of the ruling centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which has more or less controlled power in Croatia since its independence in the mid-1990s.

Despite its reform advocacy, many citizens have complained that Možemo! has failed to remove itself from forays into the dark arts of politics. In April, Mile Kekin, the husband of Možemo! Minister of Parliament (MP) Ivana Kekin and frontman of the Croatian rock band Hladno Pivo (Cold Beer), was arrested with several others, following accusations of money laundering and abuse of position.

He is alleged to have benefited from a reduced valuation that allowed him to acquire a piece of land next to his holiday property at a third of the going market rate. The property is located in Buje, a hilltop town known as the “sentinel of Istria,” located a mere ten kilometres from the Adriatic Sea. The villa is available to rent on Booking.com for a nightly price of almost EUR 500.

Kekin and Jelena Perossa, who previously worked as the head of the administrative department for spatial planning and city property management in Buje, were among those arrested. They are suspected of making an illegal profit of more than EUR 436,000 (close to USD 499,000).

After questioning, Kekin was released the same day, while the Možemo! party chalked the arrest up to “intimidation before local elections.” So far, no formal criminal charges have been filed against him, no trial has occurred, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Citizens also take advantage of the system

Public outcry has been directed towards not only the amount of corruption within Croatian society, but also towards the apparent immobility — at all levels of government — in cracking down on it. This, despite campaign promises during election periods to institute reforms against corrupt practices in both the civil service and the private sector.

The acts of Beroš and the arrested KBC Zagreb staffers are not outliers within the system. A few weeks ago, ten people were arrested for corruption at the Sveti Duh (Holy Spirit) Clinical Hospital — also located in Zagreb — including doctors, nurses and members of the hospital’s technical staff. The accused are said to have accepted bribes from citizens for preferential treatment, such as falsifying medical documents that allowed “patients” to postpone their prison sentences, or pushing names up on waitlists for surgeries and appointments.

Teller window at a medical facility in Croatia. Photo by Global Voices, CC BY .

Commenting on how customs translate into a culture of corruption — even as she stressed her desire not to participate in such a culture — former Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović explained how normalized the behaviour has become: “[When you see a doctor] everybody expects you to bring at least flowers [or] chocolates – it is customary.”

While lengthy bureaucratic processes drive some citizens to extreme methods in an effort to solve their problems, the struggle to change such entrenched customs further exemplifies how bribing healthcare officials is circumventing both established procedure and the justice system.

Towards the end of last year, as part of its Zivotne Priče (Life Stories) series, journalist Gordan Malić did an interview with the newspaper Večernji list, in which he commented on the level of corruption in Croatia:

Danas u Zagrebu ne funkcionira ništa, no organizirani kriminal nije bio jači nikada u cijeloj državi. Više se ne puca jer nikad nisu bili legalniji.

Nothing works in Zagreb today, organized crime has never been stronger in the entire country. There are no more shootings because they [the mafia] have never been more legal.