Today, Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, was speaking at the High-level conference on “Greek reforms in the health sector: Improving the Health of Citizens” organized by the Ministry of Health at the Megaron in Athens, Greece. During his speech he mentioned that “the changes that need to be made in the healthcare system are not just for economic reasons.”
He also said that “the health system is perverse and needs a sweeping reform. We are determined to do it.”
“The reform should have been done years ago. It is not because Troika asked us, but because we had to do it” he said. He continued: “the Greek National Healthcare Service (NHS) must finally stand on its feet. There will be decentralization; each citizen will have a doctor as close as possible. It is not acceptable for Greek hospitals to always be blocked, to have so many doctors and not be able to provide their services to the citizens. We can disagree on everything else but we can’t have any partisan or communication disagreements concerning the healthcare system.”
The future of the EOPYY doctors’ strike will be decided tomorrow, seeing as the federation and the associations are called under the pressure of the upcoming suspensions, to decide whether to continue the strike or reach an agreement with the Ministry of Health.
As mentioned by AMNA, the Greek Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, clarified that the reform will go ahead without them if they continue the strike. Essentially he told them to either exit the healthcare system or sit down and discuss all the ways and the means they can offer to the National Healthcare System.
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