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tagged: Andreas Loverdos, appointments, february 1-4 2011, Greece, health insurance, health ministry, Health sector, heart attack, IKA, strikesGreek Health System suffers a Heart Attack
Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Economy, Society
Three hundred thousand appointments with a physician at IKA, Greece’s biggest health insurance institution, have been cancelled due to the doctors’ strike of the current week. Desperate and angry patients are bombarding the media and the health authorities with their complaints as the central appointments’ system is setting their next medical consultations for April 2011!
To get an appointment with a specialist IKA-doctor you need normally six to eight weeks! These third-world conditions force many IKA insured patients to seek private doctors and pay out of their own pockets. However the medication has to be prescripted by the IKA doctors if the patients do not and can not grab deep in their own wallets.
Doctors are on strike Febraury 1-4, 2010 demanding the withdrawal of the bill aiming to restructure the country’s health sector in the context of a strict austerity program imposed by the Greece’s lenders International Monetary Fund and European Union.
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Hi,
Maybe you could explain in more detail what the new bill actually contains? For a foreigner those strikes often seems like a mystery, since international media only says that people protest by striking, but what does actually those bills contain and what would the results be if/when they are passed?
Andreas, the general idea behind these bills is that Greece has to drastically cut spending, be competitive and manage to repay the IMF/EU bailout. As the country is in euro zone member & cannot devalue its currency the state tries to ‘devalue’ our lives by 30%. Examples: 1)IKA does not hire doctors anymore, has cut Xmas & vacations bonuses, increases working hours. The same happens to hospital doctors where they don’t get paid anymore the total of their overtime.
2)Pharmacies: bill foresees to allow more pharmacies open per 1,500 citizens. Further, more working hours.
3)Public transport: restructure of PT, wages cuts and personel transfer. Lay offs possible.
As I said, it’s the 30% devalue. At the same time all products & services have been subject to V.A.T. hikes, 3 times within 9 months. Unemployment and recession are galloping, wages and pensions have been cut and collective bargain agreements have beenn suspended. It’s normal that group of interests go on strike.
Is that enough for you?
Hi,
Thanks for the answer. The pharmacists and the public transport is quite clear in your answer. Pharmacists will face more competition and possibly by large foreign chains that might want to compete with better service by having larger pharmacists with longer opening hours etc. Layoffs for public transportation (due to the big yearly losses) is of course also very clear reasons for striking.
When it comes to the doctors it becomes a bit more difficult for me to follow. I thought the wage cuts (mainly bonuses removal) happened last year. However, I don’t really understand what is in the bill that is coming up that makes the doctors so upset (again, since I thought the wage cuts already happened last year). Longer working hours could of course be a valid reason, but is that really what is in this bill (in regards to IKA)? They also claim that the service will be worse for the patients. How is that?
And don’t get me wrong. I don’t say that I think those measures are “deserved” by the greek people or anything like that. I grew up in the 90′s in Sweden when Sweden had a severe bank crisis (comparable to the greek in many ways), where thousands and thousands were fired from the public sector – so I can definitely relate. Of course the devaluation of the currency in some ways made the salary cuts easier to deal with – and in others more difficult.
Andreas, I will repoly to you later