Transfer of patients from requisitioned private clinics started on Friday, just hours after Greece authorities proceeded with the “appropriation” of two private health clinics and their staff in Thessaloniki, northern Greece. Requisition was necessary as the region’s public hospitals are under severe pressure from a surge in coronavirus cases over the past few weeks, the country’s Health Ministry said on Friday.
The ministry had requested 200 beds in private hospitals be made available to the public health system for the treatment of Covid-19 patients and gave a 60-minute ultimatum on Thursday night.
“Despite the effort, the finding of a mutually acceptable solution was not possible,” the ministry said.
The requisition of the two clinics and their staff in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest urban center which is at the center of spiraling cases goes into force on Friday, November 20, and for two weeks.
“In the prefecture of Thessaloniki and after the very heavy epidemiological burden that is testing the limits of hospitals as well as of staff, it was deemed necessary to operate simple Covid-19 beds in private clinics,” the ministry said.
It added that at the same time, “the public hospitals must continue to be on call with safety for accident and emergency duty and because the possibility of in-hospital spread of the coronavirus due to the rapidly increasing number of patients must be avoided.”
Greece largely escaped the initial outbreak of coronavirus in the spring, with the government imposing an early lockdown that was credited with keeping the numbers of infections and deaths low.
But it has seen a major resurgence of the virus after the summer, leading to dozens of deaths each day and thousands of new infections. Nearly 500 people are intubated in intensive care units across the country.
Dozens of health workers have been infected and go off duty for several days.
The Health Ministry said Friday noon that 85% of ICU beds are full.
The president of the Panhellenic Association of Private Clinics, Grigoris Sarafianos, admitted on Thursday that all the private clinics in Thessaloniki refused to contribute to the Ministry call.
Quoting private clinic owners, Sarafianos said that they were concerned about the hospitalization of Covid- and non-covid patients. In addition, they claimed that they do not have the necessary experience to treat Covid-patients and cited additional expenses such treatment would require and “for which they do not have the necessary liquidity.”
Sarafianos’ clinic and one of Euromedica are the two to be requisitioned.
Transfer of patients from Sarafianos’ clinic to other private clinics started already Friday noon. Speaking to grtimes, he said that there are currently 50 patients hospitalized in the clinic with 100 bed. The clinic also serves 25 dialysis patients.
Worth noting that the “requisition” is not without financial compensation on the part of the Greek state.
It should be noted that the Association of Private Clinics has 100 members nationwide, while the active clinics in Thessaloniki are 10.
Of 1,203 intensive care beds now available nationwide, 579 have been made available exclusively for Covid-19 patients, according to figures released Wednesday. Of those, 440 are already occupied. Thessaloniki had 211 ICU beds available for Covid-19, of which 199 were occupied.
Nationwide, Greece had a total of 6,074 hospital beds dedicated to coronavirus patients, of which 3,831 were occupied by Wednesday.
sources: AP, amna, others
