The Psychiatric Hospital in Dafni was visited on Monday, January 15, 2024 by the head of the KE of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoubas. Initially he met with the management of the Foundation and then with the Board of Directors of the Employees Union.

The president of the union, Stavros Kalarytis, informed him about the hospital’s problems, mainly “the huge shortage of medical, nursing and technical staff”.

Characteristic of the situation is the fact that in the hospital where last year alone it received 80,000 patients they are working only 48 doctors. The organization of the hospital is outdated and falls short by 50% to 60% of the staffing needs today, according to Mr. Kalarytis.

They also pointed out as important problems “the expansion of flexible labor relations, the recruitment through OAED of older but mostly unrelated workers, in positions that require specialized personnel, the handing over of sectors to private individuals”.

The president of the union delivered to D. Koutsoubas a memorandum of the workers with a detailed record of the problems facing the hospital.

In its placement among others the head of the Central Committee of the KKE called on the government “not to submit the bill on mental health, which is in a reactionary direction, has the seal of the EU, and considers mental health a “cost” for the state especially at a time when the phenomena of psychiatric issues and mental health and hospitalizations for these issues have increased”.

He pointed out that the KKE “has a high priority on mental health issues, opposes the dissolution of public mental health services, or measures that lead to its dissolution, the closing of special psychiatric units, the abolition of therapeutic programs, the privatization of addiction treatment because they will worsen the problems”.

“Today what is needed is the upgrading of mental health, the funding from the state budget, the recruitment of many doctors and nurses which is necessary in one of the biggest, perhaps, hospitals in the country, but also in Europe. These issues must be at the center of the struggle because a qualitative upgrade of public psychiatric-mental health is needed.”

Mentioning characteristics, the verse “the most important thing is your soul, my love” from the song by H. and P. Katsimihas, D. Koutsoubas underlined that “mental health concerns all the Greek people and the Greek youth. These must be prioritized, these must, in our opinion, be discussed in Greek society, highlighted by the media along with other problems of our workers and people and not be disoriented only with single-issue discussions about certain issues that unfortunately nowadays we see this too. At the time it is necessary, of course, for everything to be discussed and put on the table and for legislation to be made and issues to be resolved, but in the right direction. But the essential issues that concern Greek society should not be buried, and one of them is mental health and its strengthening”.

D. Koutsoubas said that “the KKE will submit questions to both the Parliament and the European Parliament, while they will be with the workers in the mass movement”.

Earlier, Mr. Koutsoumbas, accompanied by Christina Panagiotakopoulou, member of the KE, Michalis Selekos, mayor of Chaidari, and Panagiotis Papageorgopoulos, secretary of the Health Welfare Department of the KOA, had a meeting with the hospital administration where the administrator Despina Tsagdi informed him about the state of the structure, also highlighting the lack of staff as a major problem.