Public medical centers come under more pressure
State-run medical centers across Greece are set to suffer a fresh blow as doctors who refuse to close their private surgeries will be forced out of the system by the end of the year.
It will be the second wave of dismissals after the Health Ministry sacked about 3,000 doctors in 2014 who refused to shut their private surgeries and focus exclusively on the primary national healthcare network. Some 2,500 of 5,500 doctors working at state-run medical centers at the time chose to stay. But half of them took legal action against the government initiative and kept their private surgeries.
In an indication of the magnitude of the threat, eight of the 11 doctors at the Argos medical center in the Peloponnese want to keep their private surgeries. About half of the 60 doctors at the Aghia Paraskevi medical center north of Athens could also lose their state jobs by year’s end.
