Hospital workers’ union demands probe into caregiver’s death
The union of Greek public hospital workers has called for a judicial inquiry into the death of a woman working off the books as a private caregiver at the Nikaia General Hospital near Piraeus.
The 50-year-old unnamed Armenian woman died on Saturday of injuries after jumping out of a window on the hospital's first floor in an attempt to escape a routine police inspection of nursing attendants at the facility.
POEDIN on Tuesday called for an inquiry into the exact circumstances that made the woman so fearful of discovery that she would risk her own life. It claims to have knowledge of a memo from the hospital's management for the creation of a committee of registered private nurses whose task it would be to root out unlicensed caregivers.
POEDIN said the memo circulated on June 26, three days before the incident, and may have generated an additional climate of fear. It also said that the initiative is illegal, as private nurses have no legal right to investigate colleagues.
Patients at most Greek state hospitals rely on private nurses and caregivers to look after them, especially at night, as a result of staff shortages.