“Yesterday, Mr. Prime Minister enthusiastically declared that he leads a ‘State that steps firmly and is ready to meet the expectations of the citizens…’. With the exception, of course, that the citizens’ expectation includes something outrageous, such as expecting an ambulance…” commented the parliamentary representative of SYRIZA, Theodora Tzakri, immediately after the speech of the Minister of Health, Michalis Chrysochoidis, in the context of the discussion of the programmatic statements .

“A mother and her full-term baby died in Nea Makri while waiting for hours for the arrival of the ambulance. One more from a multitude of incidents, only here there is a proven causal link between the tragic outcome and the unacceptable behavior of a government agency.

In other words, they died from her and because of her”, said the SYRIZA parliamentary representative, addressing the Minister of Health Michalis Chrysochoidis, and complained that “EKAV is actually managed by a hard group of DAKE” and also has “a decorative commander who is intertwined with them since 2004”.

The SYRIZA parliamentary representative also said that “this broken and opaque mechanism, during the previous critical period, managed the whole case of the opaque and discriminatory selection of intensive care units, is the mechanism with the VIP ICUs”.

“Mrs. Tzakri, as if not a day had passed. The same over again. The VIP ICUs, the scenarios, the circuits…”, said the Minister of Health, Michalis Chrysochoidis, who advised the SYRIZA parliamentary representative to understand what the situation is today in the country and to provide answers to the major health issues and how system will meet the needs of citizens.

“Representing a party that feels proud of its greatest social conquest, ESY, I wonder if the government feels the need to apologize for what it did not do for four years and was forced to announce pre-elections, due to the tragic events”, commented its parliamentary representative PASOK, Michalis Katrinis.

Mr. Katrinis also commented that he did not hear the Minister of Health say, in the context of the program statements, that incentives will be given to bring new doctors from abroad and that incentives will be given to staff the region’s hospitals.

“I also did not hear a single word about the lists of shame of the surgeries that afflict thousands of our fellow citizens. I did not hear a single word about the fact that we have only two public rehabilitation centers and thousands of citizens are suffering. I haven’t heard anything about the district hospitals, except what you said about the health map.

Say it straight: Will you close hospitals in the province? We heard nothing about the allowance of the heavy and unhealthy, you said nothing about doctors’ labor relations.

You didn’t say anything about the hospitals on the islands and how they will be staffed”, said Michalis Katrinis who added however: “It is very gratifying that you accept the proposal-challenge of the president of PASOK, Nikos Androulakis, to finally have a merit-based way of selecting administrations in the country’s hospitals . We’re waiting for you to elaborate.”

The parliamentary representative of Plefsis Eleftherias, Michalis Hourdakis, referred to what the Minister of Health said about the personal doctor. “You all refer to a personal doctor, while all systems around the world have a family doctor.

The reasons why other specialties than general family medicine are allowed to perform family doctor duties, calling them ‘staff doctors’, relate to the fact that there are not enough general family doctors or there are not enough people willing to staff the system with low fees and with all the problems of the system”, said the parliamentary representative of Freedom of Navigation.

As he underlined, incentives must be given and the way of filling specialty positions in hospitals must be re-evaluated.

“Our system has too many specialized specialties and subspecialties, without supporting the pillar of the public health system, which is the family doctor. There are also many failures in the organization of hospitals. There are hospitals that have gynecology clinics but no pediatrics.

That is, someone will give birth but the newborn cannot have support”, observed Mr. Khourdakis and asked for a re-evaluation of the legislation so that appointed general family doctors cannot go to the secondary or tertiary level.