Mobile health units reach most remote corners of the country
The Primary Healthcare – Mobile Medical Units program for remote islands and areas throughout Greece has undoubtedly been a success story. The program is run by the University of Athens in collaboration with Health Units SA and implemented by the NGO Renaissance and Progress and with the exclusive donation of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. The first units were dispatched in January 2014 to Kastellorizo. Since then, 149 missions have been conducted to border islands and remote areas throughout Greece with almost 50,000 people examined and more than 70,000 imaging examinations performed. ‘We have all the equipment of the medical specialties so that when we arrive at the destination of the mission, within an hour and a half we can have set up a space that resembles the outpatient department of a hospital, whether we are in a regional dispensary on Donousa, or in a hall of the municipality in Fourni, or on Agathonisi,’ stressed the program’s scientific supervisor, Panagiotis Koulouvaris.
