Another Murder of an Uninsured Patient

PRESS RELEASE

Another Murder of an Uninsured Patient

One of our patients has died.  He died because no public hospital would accept him.  He died because he couldn’t pay the bill.  He died, even though he was on a list of critically ill patients that we have been petitioning the Ministry of Health to assist.  Our patient no longer needs assistance.

On the 9^th of December we published a list of ten patients diagnosed as needing IMMEDIATE hospitalization.  We made efforts to get them into ANY public hospital.

The 66 year old patient, one on the list, came to our clinic in mid-October, suffering from acute pain in the chest and coughing up blood.  We examined him and arranged for a CT scan; he needed immediate hospitalization for further treatment.  Unfortunately no pubic hospital would accept the patient since he was not able to pay.

On the 9^th of December we made our first petition to the Minister of Health.  Since we had no answer, we repeated the appeal on the 20^th of December stressing that these patients were in critical danger of losing their lives.  And on the 30^th of December, our patient did lose his life.  One more home of an uninsured patient shut down in darkness; one more citizen a victim of the murderous policies of the last four years,

After his loss, another seriously ill patient now occupies the 10^th place on the detailed list of critical patients that we RESENT to the Ministry last night. 

We hope and pray that they receive better treatment.  They certainly deserve better. 

Our list of ten now includes eight (8) patients with serious heart problems, one (1) with an aortic aneurism and one (1) with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma who has immediate need of chemotherapy.

For how long will the policy makers at the Ministry of Health put the lives of all of us in danger and by cutting the necessary funding for the public health system? 

Yesterday our 66 year old patient was buried.  But as of today, all of us will work even harder to put an end to these murderous policies.  These policies cannot be our future; those making these policies must not prevail.

-                We have left out the personal details of our patients for obvious reasons.  But the least we could do was give the bare facts to publicize the letter that we sent on January 2nd to the Ministry which, of course, contained full patient details

METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CLINIC AT HELLENIKO 

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