A 49-year-old man sought a hospital in Patras due to heavy chest pain and breathing difficulty. He was turned away though, as the hospital staff claimed it was not on emergency duty. He died short time later. Greece’s health minister has ordered a preliminary investigation into “Agios Andreas” hospital in Patras.
According to the man’s family, the 49-year-old drove to the hospital on Wednesday night, complaining of severe back pain.
At the hospital that was not on duty, however, he was advised to visit the Patras university hospital that was on emergency duty that night, in order to get the necessary tests done.
The man tried to drive away but it was impossible. He called his brother who arrived after 10 minutes. Two km later and while they were heading to Rio hospital, the man died in his brother’s car.
At Rio, doctors performed CPA but all efforts were in vain.
“We ask for the prosecutor’s intervention, a man died, no other man should die,” his brother told newsit.gr, “Do we have hospitals to turn away patients or to treat them?”
An emergency meeting is taking place at the Agios Andreas hospital with all those that were on duty that night at the hospital.
The commander of the health regional commander told media that the first hospital report is expected to be out by Saturday.
Friday evening, media raised finger in support of the Health Minister who claimed to not be aware of the situation in the hospitals. Media denouncing that “70 doctors were on duty at Agios Andreas hospital that day.”
They both pretend to forget that doctors follow protocols and orders by the hospital governor who follows orders by the regional health authorities who adapt themselves to the orders of the political leadership of the Health Minister, that is the Minister.
PS Fact is that the public hospital system is collapsing steadily and even private hospitals cannot meet patients’ needs as their customers grew but have not hired extra staff. The public and the private health system are going down and patients complain that they cannot undergo essential tests and exams such as MRI screenings.
Why then do they swear on the hypocrite oathe 🤔!!No one should ever been turned away. Disgusting 😡
*Hippocratic,correcting my spelling mistake.😉
Regarding your PS, I would recommend that everybody searches Wikipedia for “Baumol’s cost disease” and reads the article. It is a very easy to understand exposition of why we will all need to pay an ever increasing percentage of our income in taxes to provide the healthcare we need. No politician is ever willing to discus it because the words “all need to pay an ever increasing percentage of our income in taxes” equates to “I am going to lose votes”.
Based on my personal experience the private sector is surviving but obviously you need to be able to pay, which most can’t. I recently collapsed on a Wednesday and was rushed into a private hospital by ambulance. A team was on standby to meet me and got me stable in minutes. I was admitted to an ICU bed and many tests were carried over the next day or so. It was decided that I needed a pacemaker and that was fitted under local anaesthetic on the Saturday. I was discharged, fully fit again, on the Monday. The condition was extremely urgent, i.e my heart stopped while I was being prepared for the operation, so any delay would have been fatal. In the UK I would almost certainly have died given the delays being experienced there.
Do not make claims that you cannot prove. The NHS treats patients according to their needs, which is why you hear about non-urgent cases waiting in emergency departments for hours and hours. Of course you can also go private in an NHS hospital and pay to jump the queue but you should not need to do that if your medical problem is life-threatening.