“When I was sworn in as Minister of Health, we held a teleconference and I made it clear that there must be full responsibility for issues related to the hygiene of the hospital premises as well as the patients,” said the Minister of Health, Michalis Chrysochoidis, speaking to the central news bulletin of ERT and Giorgos Kouvaras with reason for the mutilation of the governor of the Agia Olga hospital due to the very bad situation in the hospital premises.

“Commanders must be vigilant. There will be no tolerance for this. There is a question of responsibility” he said and underlined that “at the beginning of 2024 we will have new administrations in the country’s hospitals”.

“130 hospitals and 150 health centers will absorb money from the Recovery Fund. It concerns the radical reconstitution of the NHS” he then said.

Regarding the shortages in pharmacies, Mr. Chrysochoidis said that he made decisions on the parallel ban on exports and emphasized that “Today Greece is the last country in the EU with shortages of medicines.”

Regarding the departure of the president of the EOF, Dimitris Filippou, the Minister of Health clarified that his term has ended and that he did not resign.

Regarding the policy implemented in Agios Savvas, where cancer patients receive the drugs for their treatments at home, he emphasized that it is going to be implemented more widely.

“We will expand the program to as many patients as we can,” he said while also talking about “Sending the expensive medicines to the patient’s home so they don’t have to wait in lines at pharmacies.”

He also talked about changes in the National Social Security System and the Social Security Administration. “There are 17 stroke units coming,” he emphasized. About the islands he said that the government will give very brave incentives to the doctors to serve in the islands.

The entire interview of Michalis Chrysochoidis on ERT and George Kouvaras:
I want to ask you about the issue of Agia Olga Hospital that you removed the Governor from his duties because of this miserable condition of the hospital. I want to ask first of all how you were informed about the condition of the hospital and when?

Good evening. Thank you very much for the invitation. Let me say something before. I saw while waiting that I heard that Yannis Ioannidis had left. I express my sadness that we all remember him with love and nostalgia. I met him in the field of politics and not in sports and he is a truly unforgettable person with a great contribution to sports.

Coming to the point you raised. Look, when I was sworn in as Minister of Health together with my deputy ministers we held a conference call on the same day, after a few hours after we settled in the Ministry and took over from the previous government, we held a conference call with all the hospital administrators. And he made it clear to them that there must be full empathy and responsibility in relation to some issues related to the hygiene of hospital premises and in general our behavior towards patients. In fact, I emphasized to them that they should immediately record some small needs that exist in various areas and immediately make corrections and improvements in small modernizations. The money, the resources were absolutely secured from our side, until of course the programs of the Recovery Fund, which concern all the country’s hospitals, are prepared.

Did you give them any time credit?

I told them as soon as you get your hospitals back you will go see this matter.

Are you sure there aren’t similar phenomena in other hospitals that you just haven’t heard about yet?

In principle, these are not new phenomena, these problems have been around for several years.

But this is even worse…

I watched them, watched them. And this is an issue that has to do with the responsibility of anyone who takes over the administration of a hospital.

Can a minister have a full picture of this situation? Do you feel that you currently have a complete picture of the situation?

No, absolutely other … we do. Look, look, We are currently trying and making a record of more serious problems, such as the fire safety of all hospitals in the country. We are doing interventions, we are planning fire safety, we are planning the renovation of all the hospitals, but I have given a specific order. There may be more, I don’t know, but there will be no tolerance for this. Because it’s not just the specific issue. That is, it is not that there is a place which is not hygienic, it is a focus of infections. It is also how someone who is an administrator in a hospital perceives, like the minister, the Secretary General, anyone who has a position of responsibility, they do not sleep, they are constantly on the alert. So here there is an issue of responsibility, management of responsibility.

Do you intend to review or evaluate the administrations of all hospitals in general?

Absolutely. We are waiting for a piece of legislation that will be brought down and voted on by the Ministry of the Interior. Some things have already been done there. So we are waiting for this bill, for the criteria to be defined by the end of the year, I believe that by the beginning of 2024 we will have new administrations in all the country’s hospitals with objective criteria.

Money has been earmarked from the Recovery Fund for hospital renovations. When will these renovations take place?

Several are already progressing in Athens, in Attiko, 50 beds are currently reserved because projects are being carried out in some clinics. We signed other hospitals yesterday, like the Nice hospital and other hospitals, which we are currently operating and trying to fix. To modernize. There are 130 hospitals which must be absorbed within 1.5 years at the most due to the recovery and absorption fund, and 150 health centers. It is about 1.5 billion euros. They are many, very, very large sums, which will be absorbed by the recovery fund.

Within the next year and a half, therefore, these projects will be completed.

Yes, they are small projects, that is, they are not beastly projects. They are small projects per hospital that concern the Emergency departments, the emergency departments, various clinics are a beautification and a modernization of the hospitals. At the same time they are equipments. They are also some very large programs concerning the digitization of hospitals and the National Health System, medicines. I want to say that this whole program is essentially about the radical reconstitution and regeneration of the NHS.

There are shortages in pharmacies, antibiotics and insulins, especially why and when will this problem be fixed?

Look, first of all I want to tell you that since the day I came to the ministry I have taken three decisions banning parallel exports. Parallel exports, for your viewers to know, are the drug exports made by pharmacists, i.e. wholesalers of the drug in European Union countries legally. But when the medicines, these products are missing from the internal market and the mother runs to find a medicine for the child who has the flu, has a virus, you realize that this is the first priority. So this, combined with the monitoring of medicines in Europe, in the European Commission, which has a corresponding process, at the moment it has calmed down quite a bit. There are shortcomings. But enough about Europe. Today Greece is the smallest, the last country in shortages in Europe.

Are the shortages connected with the departure of the president of EOF, Mr. Dimitris Filippou?

In principle, the president of the EOF did not leave, nor did the president of the EOF resign. His 9/29 term is up and we’re done.

I say the word retirement, because when his term expires he can be renewed.

It was not going to be renewed.

Why;

Why does this man have too many years to appoint a new administration. It’s very simple. I want to say, however, that the EOF must also be modernized. So, since the day I arrived, in order to go exactly to the next step for the drugs, because only dictates are not enough, since the day I arrived, I have asked for some information from the I don’t have everything, but in any case, there is a committee of which will connect with a digital mechanism, the EOF, the ministry, drug dealers, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, so that we all know exactly what is happening in the country. And I have to tell you the following. In the end, around November 15, you and every citizen, if he wants to look for a medicine to find that his doctor prescribed for him, he will know through his mobile phone if this medicine or an equivalent one exists exists.

This will be completed on November 15th.

Already at this moment the system is working on a trial basis to see how useful it is.

Something else that interests a lot of people. The policy applied in Agios Savvas, where cancer patients receive medicines for home treatments. Is there a possibility and perspective to apply it more widely?

Thank you for asking me. This is the HOME program. At the moment there are about 100 patients. Of course, don’t forget that “Nikos Kourokoulos”, the donation made by Marianna Latsis to the Greek State, in Agios Savvas, performs thousands of chemotherapy treatments annually and the same in Thessaloniki. I am in constant contact with the administration of Agios Savvas hospital, Metaxas of Piraeus, which is also a beastly oncology hospital, and Theageneio of Thessaloniki, to extend this program to all patients where we can. And one more thing. We will proceed with the sending of medicines, the expensive medicines, the ones that the people get from the EOPYY pharmacy and are very expensive, to send them home, to send them home so that people will set up in the EOPYY pharmacies.

Mr. Chrysochoidis because you have been in politics for many years and you are a person who I know wants to produce work when he goes somewhere. I honestly want you to tell me now with your hand on your heart, when you will be able to tell us what you will feel as a minister, that this health system of which you are in charge will respond to what a Greek citizen wants. Because you know, I imagine, that what you’re presiding over today doesn’t do that.

It is a system that faces many difficulties. It was also hit by COVID. Of course he got the COVID. This huge giant is the NHS. So now we have to take him to the 21st century, to the new era. Our first victory will be to bring a bill by the end of the year that will refer to the new NHS. Further forward we brought EKAV, which is one of the main pillars in the Parliament. Today we are discussing the issues I told you about in Parliament. Next month we will discuss about strokes, 17 stroke units that we will vote and establish in Greece for the first time. The outpatient clinics, that is, the emergency rooms that need to change their shape and become more humane, the Emergency Departments.

I want one last thing. What will happen on the islands? I am from Ithaca and Ithaca has a doctor.

Well, there are quite a few thoughts on the islands right now. First we have established some incentives. I can’t reveal it to you yet because it’s not just my responsibility. It will be the government’s responsibility to give some very brave incentives to doctors to stay on the islands for a period of time. Well, that’s not all though. It is also telemedicine and a number of other methods that I am thinking of and procedures and applications, so that the inhabitants of the islands can also obtain medical care.