Doctors vow to keep private surgeries open

Doctors working for the country’s biggest healthcare provider, the Primary National Healthcare Network (PEDY), which has replaced the National Organization for Healthcare Provision (EOPYY), have threatened to fight attempts by the government to make them quit their private surgeries and focus exclusively on their work for PEDY.

A bill that is still in draft form has PEDY doctors up in arms as it foresees them having to promise in writing that they will abandon any legal action against the government initiative and close their private surgeries by the end of 2017. A large number of doctors have already taken legal action to preserve their right to run a private surgery and claim that any attempt by the government to reverse that process violates the Constitution.

In comments to Kathimerini, Thanassis Apostolopoulos, the head of the nationwide union representing PEDY doctors, said the bill would be the final blow for PEDY units. Of the 2,300 doctors working for the PEDY network, around 1,000 have kept their private practices by taking legal action. If the bill is passed and they are forced to close down, they might leave PEDY rather than their private surgeries, leaving the system with a huge staff shortfall, he said.

The union vowed to fight the bill “with all means, with protests, with legal action.”