Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the General Hospital of Thessaloniki “Agios Pavlos” where renovation and modernization works of the emergency department (ED) are being carried out, within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”, funded by the European Union.

The Prime Minister was informed about the course of implementation of the projects and had the opportunity to discuss with medical and nursing staff and patients. At the end of the visit, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said:

“The construction of the new NHS is indeed a gigantic task. Step by step, however, the NHS is changing. With significant funding also from the Recovery Fund, we are proceeding with the modernization and significant interventions in more than 80 hospitals and more than 150 health centers.

Today here, at “Agios Pavlos”, a very important hospital for Eastern Thessaloniki, we saw only a small sample of these interventions, with the new, state-of-the-art emergency departments, which will be put into operation within the next two weeks. In total only “Saint Paul” from European resources, -I want to emphasize this- will collect more than 10 million euros.

It is the biggest intervention that has actually been done at the hospital, since it was built. And as the Minister also said, the new NHS requires significant interventions, and in infrastructure and equipment but mainly in the support of human resources. Because the buildings are good, the machines are good, but if we don’t have well qualified and satisfied doctors, nurses, support staff, the National Health System cannot function as we envision it.

In defiance of those who, for oppositional reasons, insist on discrediting the NHS, the NHS is changing step by step. As I said, it’s a big effort, not all the work will be seen from the first moment. In this direction, however, we move methodically and systematically.

And one last thing, because we have before us, in two months from now, the European elections: it is very important to consider that all these interventions are made from European resources. In particular, the resources of the Recovery Fund are additional resources that this government claimed, secured for the country: 36 billion euros, of which more than 1 billion euros is directed to health interventions.

This is something we must remember because on June 9 we vote for a strong Greece in a Europe which is changing and which must in turn support the important reforms that are taking place in our country».

Earlier, the contracts for the functional and energy upgrading and renovation of facilities were signed in Thessaloniki of three hospitals and 26 health centers in northern Greece, which fall under the 3rd and 4th Ministry of Health.