Closing ceremony of the Twinning project

Closing ceremony of the Twinning project “Improvement of quality of the National Cancer Screening Programmes implementation” was held on 24 March 2017, at the Ministry of Health. Ministry of Health as the beneficiary institution, Croatian Institute of Public Health (CIPH) as the main stakeholder of the project, and numerous experts in the medical field compatible with the project’s objectives, were involved in project’s implementation.

The overall objective was to decrease the morbidity and mortality rates within the target population in the Republic of Croatia and to enhance the quality of the National Cancer Screening Programmes implementation. Malignant diseases (the leading public health problem in the Republic of Croatia) are the second most common cause of death and cause the highest number of hospitalizations. The achieved results of the Twinning project were presented at the ceremony: analysis of the existing legal framework in the field of breast, colorectal and cervical cancer screening with recommendations for improvement, guidelines in the field of prevention of malignant diseases, strengthened capacities of health professionals and all stakeholders involved in the project, and the upgrade of the National Cancer Screening Register.

Croatian Minister of Health Milan Kujundžić, addressed the audience at the ceremony, emphasizing that the awareness of the need for preventive examinations is not sufficiently developed in Croatia, despite the fact that many lives were saved thanks to people responding to invitations for ultrasound and mammography examinations, or cytological smear and colonoscopy. The Minister expressed hope that the knowledge gained through this project will be used to improve the prevention and early detection of malignant diseases.

The director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health Krunoslav Capak said that this project detected the crucial critical points that needed to be changed in order to obtain better response and results of prevention programmes. The project strengthened the professional capacities of health care workers as well as other involved stakeholders; and approximately 580 people participated in regional educational trainings.

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