With numbers, the president of POEDIN, Michalis Giannakos, captured the reality that prevails at the National Emergency Center, following the news of the death of the 19-year-old pregnant woman in Nea Makri, just one day after the incident with the 63-year-old woman in Kos was made public.

Regarding the last incident, Mr. Giannakos pointed out that the call to EKAB is officially recorded at 10:55 and not at 08:30 as claimed by the relatives.

“From here on, a payment of forces is given, a pregnant woman, that is, the incident is downgraded. But that doesn’t mean anything. When a relative calls an ambulance, he does not know how to appreciate the incident. The ambulance must go immediately,” stressed Mr. Giannakos.

According to what he reported speaking to the First Program, the relatives called again after 11, said that the incident was aggravated and a mobile unit left to pick her up. “But when 11 was called, I’m telling you, if 11:30 had gone the baby and the woman might not have died. Half an hour is tolerable, let alone one. Three and a half hours?’ he pointed out.

“In Attica, 45 ambulances operate instead of 90. That’s why it happened, because we don’t have rescuers and ambulances. And why haven’t we done anything as a state. We have many ambulances, but they are broken because they have traveled a million kilometers. We have no people, no ambulance crews. If we had people they would work more and let them be broken. At the moment they work for the morning and afternoon shift 45 instead of 90 for the whole of Attica and in the evening shift 25 instead of 50”, complained Mr. Giannakos.

Describing the situation on the islands, Mr. Giannakos said characteristically that “for another summer, for many years, the islands are unfortunately without health protection, by nurses, doctors and rescuers, ambulance crews”.

Announcements are made from time to time, but they come out fruitless, said Mr. Giannakos, and the reason is that the auxiliary nursing staff does not show interest. “Doctors get 1,850 euros a month, nurses and paramedics get 800 euros a month. Who will go to an island to live with this money? They prefer to go abroad where they pay for the tickets and come to their home country for free” he noted.

The health personnel belonging to the permanent population of the islands has been exhausted, Mr. Giannakos added. Those who were, are either private doctors or are in the hospital. “Most people go private, they prefer it to going to the hospital, being on call every day for the whole month and getting 1850 euros,” he said characteristically.

“So once again, they did not take care to staff the EKAV stations on the islands, with the result that in most of the large islands of the Aegean, an ambulance operates 24 hours a day. Not only in Kos, Kalymnos, Paros, Santorini, Mykonos, Syros, Samos, islands that have a lot of visitors. When it is an ambulance it will go to the first incident. The second incident which will be an emergency requiring first aid will be transported by car or truck bed. Don’t look that everything doesn’t become known, because it doesn’t end. There are many incidents that go like this, but because they go well, they do not concern the public,” noted the president of POEDIN.

“Equipment is there, there are ambulances, there are medical machines in the hospitals, there is no staff,” he said.

An ambulance operates in Kalymnos, Leros, Mykonos, Santorini, Syros, Samos, Paros, according to Mr. Giannakos, while as he said there are islands that do not have any.

When there is no ambulance, they take over the rural ones and the vans, said Mr. Giannakos, complaining that this situation has been happening for too many years and despite the workers’ protests, no one listens.

“In the hospitals, in Santorini for example, we don’t have an anesthesiologist, microbiologist, pathologist, pulmonologist. Last year, two cases of coronavirus, one from Great Britain and one from the United States, were treated with a general practitioner, without a pulmonologist. We became internationally renowned,” he added.

The solution, according to Mr. Giannakos, is to provide incentives, with higher salaries being the most basic. “The state should be honest with the hospital staff. We didn’t get in because it was unhealthy, those who are assistants didn’t become permanent and the salaries are humiliating. Incentives in terms of service, salary and in the meantime the local government is not bad to help. I think it is her obligation. The state does nothing. How do you attract a doctor, a nurse, when the cost of living is more than the salary? You must come at least, do what the state does not do. Give motivation. Ios, Karpathos and Kythera have two lifeguards. Can the two lifeguards cover the three shifts a day, 30 days a month? We have uncovered 8 hours” concluded the president of POEDIN.