Due to lack of money surgical material and plaster are missing

Greece: Lack of surgical material and gypsum due to lack of funds

13/06/2012

In the hospital of Chios in Greece, the state austerity measures are now even noticeable in the medical care. The financial crisis is leading to bottlenecks in surgical equipment, plaster and other indispensable accessories. Patients in state hospitals sometimes have to wait for life-saving operations because the materials they need to supply are simply too expensive. Whether swabs, tips or rubber gloves - medical material is currently in short supply in Greece.

Patients must wait for life-saving operations
Conditions in Greek hospitals seem to be at rock bottom. Even the patient meals are rationed in some clinics. The reason for the state austerity measures is the financial crisis. In order to pay the salaries of the civil servants and the installments, the Greek government has frozen almost all other expenses. Among them are the hospital subsidies affected, but also the insurance funds.

Since some of the clinics were no longer able to pay their suppliers, these medical supplies and medicines are only available for cash. A vicious circle that now leads to a serious bottleneck in the medical care of the population. In Greece, many medicines have disappeared from the pharmacy range. Hundreds of thousands of insured persons of the largest health insurance company EOPYY have no choice but to pay their medicines in cash in the pharmacies, and then turn to the health insurance company with the receipt. Pharmacist associations warn of the collapse of the Greek health system.

If the Radikallinken prevail in the election on Sunday, the problems could quickly spread to other areas. The party has announced that it will terminate the loan agreements with the EU and return to the drachma. The change to the old currency would then have to take place within a few weeks. Most likely, most imports would come to a standstill. The bottleneck in the medical sector is very likely only the beginning.

Even rubber gloves and disinfectants are in short supply
A doctor from Athens reports: „I buy the rubber gloves at my own expense in a pharmacy opposite.“ Similar report numerous clinics. According to their own information, scarcity of disinfectants prevails in the University Hospital of Heraklion in Crete. Even more serious are the effects in the state hospital Attikon in Athens. There are no heart operations performed because the material is missing for heart-lung machines. „We need 350 Euros, but our funds are empty. "Christos Rokkas, Chirug, told the newspaper Ta Nea that dialysis patients in Thessaloniki are worried about their health because there is a lack of supplies for vital dialysis machines in at least two public hospitals , sufferers report that the hospital in Chios even lacks gypsum. „If someone is admitted with a bone fracture, we ask the relatives to get the plaster from the nearest pharmacy itself, "says Vassilis Vassiliadis, orthopedist in Chios.

Picture: Rainer Sturm