“No one is left without access to health because they do not have insurance capacity. There will be no fellow citizen without medical coverage” said the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Domna Michailidou, in an interview with the newspaper “Makedonia Kyriakis”.

As he said, everyone will have free access to the public health system and will be entitled to nursing and medical care.

At the same time, Mrs. Michailidou clarified that the children of the uninsured and our uninsured fellow citizens with disabilities and, “from my previous term as Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs and from my current position, are two social groups that I do not have and will not to leave aside. In addition to the full medical and pharmaceutical coverage, to which all uninsured from the public health system are entitled in any case, they will also be covered by private doctors for prescribing drugs, treatments and diagnostic tests.

In a question regarding with the Disability Certification Centers (KEPA), the Minister of Labor answered the following: “Improving the daily life of our fellow citizens with disabilities is our primary goal and, for this reason, we have planned a network of actions in this direction. First of all, we are proceeding with the creation of a new platform, where the interested party will be able to submit his application from his home, while we have abolished the fee for the examination. Secondly, the number of doctors will more than double from 500, which is today, to 1,200. Thirdly, we are implementing a training program for the medical corps and the administrative staff of the centers for better and faster service to our fellow citizens with disabilities. Fourthly, we are increasing the remuneration of doctors by 50% and, fifthly, we are also strengthening the specialties of the body of doctors who certify disability. All this is happening for the first time since KEPA was established a decade ago. This design aims to improve the daily life of the disabled and we are not going to stop here.”

Among other things, Mrs. Michailidou also spoke about the pending pensions, pointing out that in the last 28 months, around 750,000 outstanding pensions have been cleared out of the 1 million we received in 2019. A number that is decreasing day by day.

Also, the Minister of Labor referred to the upcoming changes regarding the unemployment benefit. As he underlined, “the connection of the unemployment benefit with the years and the contributions an employee has paid, means justice. So what we are planning is a new, fairer support system for the unemployed. The new system will recognize the contributions someone has paid and will not equate completely different cases. What is certain is that the amount of the annual allowance will not be lower than the allowance granted under the current system. In fact, for some it will be bigger.”