In the Caramandaneio her Patras the Minister of Health was found on Wednesday morning Adonis Georgiadesa few hours after the big fire, announcing that the hospital would be back up and running in 24 hours.

“I want to publicly express my gratitude to the commander of the 6th Health Region, Mr. Karvelis, but also to the hospital administrator and the staff. Everyone contributed to make yesterday’s little miracle happen”, said Mr. Georgiadis initially, adding immediately afterwards:

“The hospital was evacuated by our own decision very early as a precaution. If the fire had arrived and then we evacuated, there could have been many difficult incidents with the young children here because of the smoke. By the time the fire got here, the hospital had no more patients, the staff had taken care to remove anything flammable.”

“We support private doctors, but our main pillar is the National Health System”

The minister then referred to the importance of the new fire safety system that was recently installed, while he also answered about the private doctors who “refuse to undertake services in hospitals”.

“I am in favor of the good faith understanding of people. We have hospitals in the country that are constantly calling for permanent staff in critical medical specialties and we have zero participation. What do we say? All the hospital administrators in the wider area called the private doctors who were operating one by one and they were offered to take on a few shifts a month with blocks of service. If no one comes forward, what else should the Ministry of Health do?” pointed out, concluding:

“We support private doctors, but our central pillar is the National Health System. So it’s so awesome to do two shifts a month? Do we not care about patients at all? I respect private individuals, but I hope I don’t have to take additional measures.”