In his first public appearance on Tuesday, Ostojic said that financial reports of the Health Insurance Agency (HZZO) and hospitals showed that their revenues exceeded expenditures, but that this was due to deadlines for the payment of prescription drugs and expensive medicines having been prolonged from 130 to 180 days and from 30 to 90 days respectively. He also noted that payment deadlines for transplantation and intervention cardiology programmes had been prolonged.

Due to the prolonged deadlines, due obligations in the financial report amount to 450 million kuna or 10 percent of the overall debt, but if payment deadlines and the law on fiscal accountability were respected, due financial obligations would amount to 2.1 billion kuna or 50 percent of the debt, Ostojic said, adding that the situation was similar with hospitals, which had 3.1 billion kuna of outstanding obligations in the first nine months.

"The state needs a clean start and I will insist on an audit, not for the sake of looking into the past... but for the sake of respecting citizens. We will insist on a clean start for the entire budget, including that of the Health Ministry. Maybe there are no skeletons in the closet, and maybe there are, but from what I've seen, there is not much money," Ostojic said.

For that reason, the minister said that the current health contribution paid by pensioners with pension allowances exceeding 5,100 kuna would probably not be abolished but reduced to one percent.

Ostojic said that at its first session on January 3 the government was expected to appoint his deputy, while the law on artificial insemination would be the first law in the health sector to be amended. After that, changes will be made to the law on emergency medical care, Ostojic said.