Metropolitan Community Clinic at Helliniko: June 2014

Friday, June 20, 2014

The Destruction of Greek Public Insurance using the pretext of the Crisis!

Press Release

The Destruction of Greek Public Insurance using the pretext of the Crisis!

The 2014 report of the ILO (International Labor Organization of the UN) on World Social Protection makes interesting reading. You can read it here – http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_245201.pdf

It is glaringly obvious that in a period of economic crisis, such as the one we’re living through, human rights are not in the forefront of policy anywhere. According to the ILO report, social welfare and pubic insurance policies, which play a very important role in the realization of human rights regarding health, education, reduction of poverty and social equality are waning, rather than becoming stronger.

Unemployment is recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an important area that should be covered by public welfare systems (article 25). Data from the European Union shows that that the unemployed who receive unemployment benefits are more likely to return to work than those who do not (European Commission 2014, p. 163). But even so, the right to public insurance for the unemployed is shrinking at the precise period when it is most needed. In 2010-2011, the percentage of GDP to public expenditure on social protection programs for working age people in Greece (excluding health) reached only 2% (less than the percentage in Albania and Bulgaria), while in countries such as Belgium, Ireland and even Spain (also badly hit by the crisis) the level is more than 6%, and more than 8% in Scandinavian countries.

As a direct consequence, between 2007 and 2012, child poverty increased in 19 of the 28 member states of the European Union while more than a quarter of the children in Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania and Spain live below the poverty level (€7,178 per year for and individual, and €15,073 euros for a family of four). The increase in child poverty is cause for alarm not only for the negative, long term impact in relation to the future employment prospects of the today’s children, but also for the future productivity of European economies (European Commission 2014A)

Concerning public pensions, Greece is one of the few countries in the world (the only other European countries being Spain and Albania) where there has been an overall reduction of pension levels (which started in 2010-2012. Nobel prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz sounded the alarm, but in vain. “When the economy gets weaker, spending on social protection and unemployment schemes should automatically go up, helping to stabilize the economy. ……One of the sad facts of the so-called reforms in recent decades is that we have been weakening these important automatic stabilizers.” (International Labour Review, Vol. 148 (2009), No. 1–2).

In Greece, the budgetary consolidation measures have featured significant budget cuts, even in health. The per capita expenditure on health in Greece fell 11.1% between 2009 and 2011 (OECD 2013c) while the health budget for 2011 decreased by €1.4 billion. These cuts have led to reduced health care delivery and problems in a wide range of areas from preventative care to the availability and affordability of health services and essential medicines such as antibiotics. Creation and maintenance of health infrastructure has also been adversely affected.

Shifting the burden for health care payment from the puclic purse to individual pockets has particularly serious consequences for low income groups. At the exact same time, fiscal consolidation measures have resulted in the reduction of workers in the health field and a reduction of their salaries. The increase demand for public health services was self-evident.

It is clear that the recovery effort of the financial sector has been at the expense of social protection programs, as if this was the cause of the crisis. However, deficits continue to grow, the bank bailouts go on and revenues continue to decline because of the economic downturn. Oliver Blanchard, the Chief Economist at the IMF has admitted that there were serious errors in the design of the fiscal consolidation policies (Blanchard and Leigh 2013). The increase of unemployment and poverty on this scale in so many European countries should have led to measures that increased and improved spending for social protection programs, not wholesale cutbacks.

For example, in Greece, salaries have been cut by nearly 35% and unemployment reached 28% from 2008 to 2013. And yet, expenses for social protection programs were reduced by more than 12% in the same period. Inevitably, poverty in Greece climbed to a record level exceeding 35% of the population in 2013 with all the attendant misery connected with families who cannot meet their basic needs.

Recently the European Parliament launched an inquiry into the legitimacy of these “reforms” as concerns Ireland, Cyprus, Spain, Slovenia, Portugal Italy and Greece (European Parliament 2014b). You can read their conclusions here (http://mkie-foreign.blogspot.gr/2014/03/a-resolution-by-european-parliament.html)

METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CLINIC AT HELLINIKO

Working Hours
(MONDAY - FRIDAY 10:00 - 20:00) and (SATURDAY 10:00 - 14:00)
CONTACT PHONE NUMBER: +30 210 9631950
ADDRESS: Inside the old American Military Base, 200m away from the Traffic Police of the Municipality of Helleniko, next to the Cultural Center of Helleniko
Post code TK16777, Elliniko, Attiki, Greece
Blog http://mkie-foreign.blogspot.gr/ Email mkiellinikou@gmail.com

Mr. Georgiades, are you going to apologize now to the uninsured patient who was thrown out of surgery?!

Press Release

Mr. Georgiades, are you going to apologize now to the uninsured patient who was thrown out of surgery?!

You can see above a letter by G.D., a 54 year old heart patient mentioned last month in an effort to solve his health problem. He describes in detail the incident at Evanglismos hospital and he makes very clear that the Minister of Health is not telling the truth.

To remind our readers, this is the patient who, on 7 May 2014 was thrown out of the hospital just before an operation to insert a pacemaker was to take place; an operation necessary to protect his life. Read more here (http://mkie-foreign.blogspot.gr/2014/06/message-to-greek-minister-of-health-if.html).

The Greek Ministry of Health – and the Minister himself – tried to put the blame on our clinic in three press releases – which you can read here 1, 2, 3 (in Greek).

The Ministry of Health insisted that we were to blame, that the whole story was concocted by us, and that there was no patient ejected from the hospital!

Here attached, you will find a video featuring the Greek Minister of Health in an interview together with our Dr. Vichas aired on 17 May 2014. It is in the Greek language, but even if you don’t understand Greek, you’ll get the gist. The (now former) Greek Minister of Health is the one who is getting hysterically angry. He insists that we are liars and leading the public astray. Our Doctor George Vichas is attempting to calmly respond. The commentators are calling on Mr. Georgiadis to be quiet long enough to allow Dr. Vichas to answer.

Link ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6vuKcQdNXk )

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Message to the Greek Minister of Health: If you can’t do the job, then resign!

Press Release

Message to the Greek Minister of Health:

If you can’t do the job, then resign!

The announcement of the Greek Ministry of Health in answer to our press-release of the previous day shows clearly that the Ministry has no idea of what their duties are.

Once more, we will answer the questions raised by the Health Ministry in their communication.

1) To the charge that we imagined that the 54 year old uninsured patient was thrown out of surgery by the hospital administration, we respond that this was confirmed by not only the patient and his wife, but also by others within the hospital. The patient was admitted for surgery after pressure by the doctors of Evangelismos hospital on the understanding that he would soon be issued with a welfare booklet which would allow him to not have to pay for the expensive operation. However, at the last minute, the head of accounting of the hospital rejected this plan and forced the patient to leave. That is exactly what happened.

2) We intervened for the sole purposed of helping the patient defend his life. When a cardiologist decides a patient must receive a pacemaker, and must receive it immediately, that is enough to show that the patient is vulnerable at any time which could be fatal. No cardiologist can predict when a serious arrhythmia, or worse will occur. It’s bad enough that some non-medical staffer can make such a patient wait for a month. But it’s down-right strange that this patient couldn’t get the proper care from the beginning of his condition. Perhaps it’s even stranger that the Ministry of Health is trying desperately to excuse its behavior with two announcements in 24 hours. Since the operation was scheduled, as the Ministry of Health stated, why was the patient contacted by the hospital to be re-admitted the following day? What would this patient have done if we had not provided him the medication he required?

3) We announced on our Facebook page Tuesday night 13 May and that the patient had been re-admitted to hospital for surgery. We did this because, unfortunately, we have often received promises from the Ministry which ended up being empty words. We don’t announce the promises – just those that are carried through. The next day on Wednesday 14 May, it was confirmed to us that the patient had been re-admitted and we announced it on our web page. The issue is why did the hospital administration make such a big deal over doing what was expected? The patient had access to doctors (at Evangelismos) and had medicines from us. But why did they not proceed with the surgery the first time he was admitted? The surgery occurred only after we publicized the whole story. What does the Ministry want us to believe? That is was just coincidence that on the night of Tuesday 13 May the hospital administration called the patient to tell him that we would be re-admitted the very next day? Is it standard procedure for the hospital administration to call every patient and inform him to come in for surgery the next day? Why then on Wednesday 14 May did we get a panicky call from the administration of the hospital asking us to cancel and delete the press release since “all’s well that ends well?”

4) We question the hospital administration and the Greek Health Ministry, not the doctors who extend themselves to help thousands of citizen on a daily basis and under the very difficult conditions imposed by the economic memorandum and the Troika (cuts in public hospital budgets, hospital closures, the dissolving of EOPPY, reduction in medical personnel, increase in costs of public health for those who do have access to it, etc.) The daily situation that doctors and medical staff have to face in Greek public hospitals is tragic. Often basic goods are lacking, such as gauze, not to mention expensive medicines, spares for diagnostic machinery rendering them useless, etc.

5) For our four uninsured patients with hepatitis, we were pleased that the Ministry of Health publicly admitted that they referred us to a pharmaceutical company. So we once again emphasize that the leadership of the Ministry of health should IMMEDIATELY resign, not only because it improperly does its job by referring uninsured with communicable diseases to find treatment directly from the pharmaceutical company, but also because the patients were referred to us to provide medication or to provide surgery (read here for more information – in Greek). The Ministry of Health is responsible for protecting the public health of society as a whole – not refer individuals to private companies or voluntary clinics. If they can’t do this, and believe that we can do the job better, then pass the administration on to us – we’ll do our best!! Until that day, the Ministry of Health is RESPONSIBLE for these four patients, not to mention the 3 million other uninsured in this country. Finally, just to note, our problem was not to find the refrigeration to store the medication, but to find the medication itself for these 4 patients.

Finally we have to say that all the energy that the Ministry of Health has put in to publicizing their differences with us – two press releases in 24 hours - could have been better spent in helping uninsured patients, and not trying to justify the unjustifiable. Volunteer clinics like ours, trying to bring solidarity to the community have nothing to gain from a public feud with the Ministry of Health. We do not/will not play such games.

If we were playing “political games”, perhaps the social services of the municipality of Glyfada were playing games when they referred the patient to us, knowing all the details of the case?

Maybe the United Nations is playing games when they published a report citing serious violations of human rights of both citizens and immigrants from the Greek state, and pointing up the many shortfalls of the Greek public health system?

Neither us, nor Glyfada nor the UN are playing games, we’re simply expressing truths that some parties would rather not become widely known.

The treatment that our clinic recommends for the Greek Minister of Health and his colleagues is for them to collectively bend their heads a bit and listen carefully to the hundreds of citizens who contact them and find a comprehensive solution to their problems, rather than trying to patch up or cover up the issues. Let us finally open the Greek Public Health System to all of the Greek public, whether insured or not!!