“More than 150 hospitals have said they are organizing evening surgeries. So, they have the necessary staff to perform afternoon surgeries”, the Minister of Health told SKAI and on the show “Kalimera” with Giorgos Autias Adonis Georgiades.

“Papageorgiou Hospital is the hospital with the longest waiting times in regular surgeries. The first four surgeries that will be performed on Tuesday are people who rushed to take advantage of the possibility of afternoon surgeries because they expect to be operated on from 2020”, noted Mr. Georgiadis, stressing that these are “the first afternoon surgeries that take place after 40 years because for the first time we discussed and legislated them in 1992”.

Also, the Minister of Health underlined that “Thessaloniki is the city that has the biggest shortage of anesthesiologists in the country”, while he argued that “it is amazing the participation at the University Hospital of Larissa, where 100% of the staff declared that they would participate in the afternoon surgeries”.

On the occasion of the passing of the bill for non-state HEIs, the Minister of Health declared “I am proud to have co-signed this law” and applauded the Prime Minister “for taking this decision” but also the Minister of Education Kyriakos Pierrakakis, “who handled the discussion with real mastery in the Parliament”.

“The opposition has disappeared. I was impressed that the far-right parties “Niki” and Velopoulos took the lead in “no”. Whether SYRIZA or New Left spoke, Velopoulos was the same. Leftists and rightists play it, accusing Kyriakos Velopoulos of “political hypocrisy” and “normal communist”.