The incentives for NHS doctors to work privately as well as for private doctors to cooperate with the NHS, which hospitals are ready to start afternoon surgeries in the coming weeks and his assurance that structures will not be closed based on the new health map, he reveals speaking to Athenian – Macedonian News Agency o Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis.

The Minister of Health explains that today when there is money to make recruitments there is no offer to fill the vacancies. “All the reform we are attempting has to do with attracting new doctors to the system. The freedom to provide private work by a doctor in the public sector is a great motivation”, A. Georgiadis points out, among other things, and reveals how this will be done: “When an NHS doctor has fully completed his responsibilities towards the public system, i.e. he has done his schedule, his on-call duties, he will be able to have any other private work relationship he wants in his spare time. This can be from private practice to a partnership with the private sector.”

However, in the thoughts of the Minister of Health, private doctors should also be able to “enter” and work in NHS structures. What do you mean; “For example, if a surgeon wants to use the operating room of a public hospital with his team, he will pay for this use. But there will be an insurance valve for this cooperation. In order for a doctor to be able to have this cooperation, he should also participate in the on-call service, i.e. take on a share of the hospital’s responsibilities, because otherwise it is an injustice to the doctors who work at the hospital,” he explains in his interview with APE-MPE.

Speaking of afternoon surgeries, emphasizes that like all big changes they need time to find their way. They will not start working around the clock from the next week they start, he emphasizes characteristically and adds that “Evangelism, the General State Hospital of Athens (G. Genimatas), the General State Hospital of Nice will immediately start afternoon surgeries, as well as several hospitals in the region that have already expressed interest. There will be constant information as a press release will be issued on which hospitals and which clinics are starting evening surgeries, so that people know where they can turn to make an appointment to be operated on.”

Answering a question about the interest of doctors to participate in them, but also the adequacy of the infrastructure, he points out “most doctors who do not receive a packet, will from now on have a legal procedure – so they don’t feel like they are the “whores” , that it is the honest ones and the other… “smart” ones who get the bag – with their work and their value of making extra incomes. We reward this good doctor. We have a front with the other.”

Referring to the fact that we pay most of the money out of our own pockets in Greece for Health services, he explains that “if we transfer a part of the private expenditure to the public system, the public system will become stronger and the money we will ultimately pay will be less. That is, someone who will give 5,000 to a private hospital, if he goes to an afternoon surgery, he will give 1,500 euros. In the end, he will pay less money out of his pocket.” A. Georgiadis also reveals that one of the basic criteria by which hospital administrators will be judged will be the operation of the patient office. “Patients will have full access to it to be informed about the services provided in the hospital, they will be able to rate these services and also report behaviors that are inconsistent with the medical function,” he says.

Finally, he emphatically emphasizes that the changes being attempted do not threaten the public nature of the NHS, but the opposite. Regarding the new health map, he says “I did not come to the ministry to close structures. I came to the ministry this time to strengthen the structures. We need a new SSY and this is what we are building. As designed it has no future in the new world. We are building a new NHS to last the next fifty years”