Reflections on the development of health care and patients' rights in Croatia

Nowadays, in the world of markets and market economy, not only health care but medicine and medical practice in general, are looked upon more and more through the eyes of profit-making and financial interests. At the same time, there is an increasing number of initiatives intended to emphasise that human medicine should be at the service of society and that this fact should have priority over any market and financial interests of individuals even in "the market oriented world". The experience of the Croatian non-governmental organization to which the authors belong and which deals with patients' rights and helps in the development of partnership relations between patients and other subjects in the health care system, can be of a wider interest. This short review is the result of eight years' experience of the Croatian Association for Patients' Rights (CAPR), and its possible effects on the health care system in the future from the authors' points of view.