The Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, spoke to ERT about the online e-ticket application, through which the insured can make an appointment at the EOPYY pharmacies and pick up their medicine.

As he said on public television: “We have built an online application and people can make appointments online. You enter the application, you choose which one medicine you want and when you want to take it, you put it recipe code and it gives you automatically at which EOPYY pharmacy is available and what time to go. In a few days it will be ready application (app) at mobile for greater convenience. We live in the age of digital Greece. You don’t have to go and stand in line.”

“We will immediately hire 20 pharmacists with a pad and another 25 pharmacists at the end of the month through the assistant platform. So, to 45 pharmacists in total. At the beginning of April, if there is no objection to the tender, the home distribution will also begin”he still said.

“Not all EOPYY medicines can enter the neighborhood pharmacies, some will enter, because some are too expensive and some others need special storage conditions. I do not underestimate pharmacists and I would like to be able to take all the medicines to private pharmacies as well. But this has some difficulties, mainly from the side of the industry, which does not trust parallel exports. And it also has a big financial difficulty, who will pay the cost? Because don’t forget that the medicines from the EOPYY pharmacy have zero participation, while the medicines from the private pharmacy have the pharmacist’s profit. Of course, we don’t want to pass this on to the world, so here a cost is created that must be covered by EOPYY. This on an annual basis, it is some millions, it is not that simple”, continue.

For the circuit of illegal prescriptions the Minister of Health said: “First of all, I want to congratulate the Greek Police who managed to track down this ring. This investigation was started in collaboration with EOPYY and I believe that there will be another one soon, because we have and have other indications of other illegal circuits. This particular problem will be solved when my ministerial decision on the active and non-active AMKA is activated. We are finally close to implementing it, because it was very difficult technically to separate who has an active and who does not have an active AMKA. I believe that in February the active-inactive AMKA will be implemented and we will close too many theft doors”.

For the how to reduce emergency room waitsreplied: “If you get sick in the Netherlands, to go to the hospital you have to have a paper from your personal doctor. If you go without it, you pay for everything out of your own pocket. On the contrary, in Greece we have an open system that anyone who feels they want to go to the hospital can go. What does that mean? Every day in Attica, of the 2,500 cases that go to the emergency room, 2,000 are ambulatory patients. In the Dutch health system, they would never reach the hospital. We, in order to break this great burden on the world without going to the model of northern Europe, because I want the world to feel secure about their health, we are immediately putting on call and will announce it in the next few days, emergency services in the major health centers. If someone has a fever they don’t need to go straight to the hospital, they can go to the health center where they will wait very little, while if they go to the hospital they will wait longer. If a part of ambulatory patients instead of going directly to the hospital go to the health centers, automatically the 2,000 patients per day will become 1,000. The health centers that we put on call are large health centers, with 24-hour or extended operation. They have 70 -80 staff each. With machines, with biological laboratories, with everything. If the doctor at the health center who examined you decides that you should go to the hospital, obviously you will go to the hospital.”

For the staff in hospitalsnoted: “At the moment, we have set out to hire 5,000 staff in the NHS for 2025. We had made another 6,000 in 2024. It is a large number of hires if you add the support staff whose contracts have been renewed. We have 45% more staff than in 2019. Let’s not bring disaster all the time. There is a shortage in some specialties and in some special hospitals we have a big problem, but this is not the general rule.”

For the free medicines for low pensioners: “The provision has been passed and it is being implemented, what was announced by Mr. The Prime Minister told the Parliament that from March 1, those who would be beneficiaries of the EKAS will have zero participation in medicines”.

Regarding yesterday’s gatherings for Tempi, the minister replied: “People came down and they came down well. Greece is waiting for the clearance from this tragic accident. Purification will come the way it comes in civilized states, that is, when the court is finished. We also expect this trial to take place. Everything must come to light. No shadow should be left. The times in which justice moves, concern justice alone. Anyone who suggests that the Government should pressure justice to go faster, that means violating the constitution.”

For her misinterpretation of of his statements about the relatives of the Tempe victims continued: “Once again I have been the victim of very great slander, for which I will be forced to appeal to Greek justice. I mentioned in a show to Mrs. Zoe Konstantopoulou, having singled out relatives and parents from any motive, because as a father I realize that losing your child is not comparable to anything. And yet there was a site, which falsified my words and then I received thousands of messages from our “sensitive” fellow citizens wishing me to get cancer, my children to die and so on. I don’t like toxicity in politics in general. I have fought it, I have suffered it.”

For the possibly the opposition parties to testify request for a morning debate in Parliament on Tempi, he answered: “I have absolutely no objection if the parties submit a request and it is foreseen by the rules of the Parliament that such a discussion should take place. No one from the Government has anything to fear, obviously there should be a discussion. But I would be very happy if the parties had the same sensitivity for the dead in Marfin, for the dead in Mati, for the dead in Mandra. I repeat, in such tragic incidents no shadow should be left. In something so tragic, I firmly believe that political exploitation is not the right thing to do.”