Medical staff urgently needed, says union
Doctors are describing a desperate situation at healthcare facilities in Attica that are part of the National Health System (ESY) and are calling for staff recruitments, increased funding and pay reviews.
At a press conference held on Monday, the Athens-Piraeus Hospital Doctors’ Association (EINAP) spoke of long waiting hours for patients and a shortage of emergency care beds and staff, claiming the system is essentially falling apart.
“There are colleagues who want to staff the hospitals in Attica, but there are no job openings. Staffing is purely a matter of political will. If the government wants to, it can solve it,” EINAP said. According to EINAP President Matina Pagoni, the union recently began a proper record of the problems faced by ESY health units around Attica, which also include a lack of specialists.
Kostas Livadas, urologist at the Sismanoglio, described the situation as “disintegrating to hopeless.” As he said, of the 700 permanent doctor positions promised last May, only 350 have been advertised, a number that does not even cover retirements.
“There is a shortage to extinction in paramedical areas of specialtization, such as paramedics. In the last three and a half years not a single nursing post has been advertised. It is impossible for one nurse to cover 40 or even 60 patients on a night shift,” he said.
