Health needs care
The tension between the health minister and the Panhellenic Medical Association is an acute symptom of a chronic ailment – the lack of organization in the public health system and the absence of necessary coordination with the private sector. And so, the National Health System (ESY) finds itself without the necessary medical personnel, without having a way to call on private doctors for help. The fact that the minister thinks that he can deal with the problem more easily by turning it into a clash with doctors brings to mind the old saying, “to a hammer, all problems look like nails.” This does not help solve this problem. But it does highlight the impasse which should have been avoided.
Regional hospitals lacking essential medical personnel are the unavoidable product of years of institutional inertia, the lack of incentives and the absence of supervision that would have contributed to the rational use of resources and anticipated today’s difficulties. Neither the shock of the economic crisis, nor the spending cuts and the harsh measures demanded by the memorandums, nor the many donations in those years and during the pandemic, resulted in the health system being re-established on firmer foundations. The horizontal wage cuts and salaries, which have remained very low since, drove many doctors (young and experienced ones) out of the ESY, out of Greece even. It will take a lot of time and money to set up a credible, functioning primary health sector, to provide incentives that will keep people in the ESY, to provide services befitting a European country. We find serious problems in all public services, with the weaknesses multiplying until, with the right trigger, they burst to the fore. In the health system, though, avoiding the issues, getting comfortable with things as they are, setting up theatrical conflicts without useful results, have a direct, constant and visible impact on the lives of citizens and visitors to the country.
The health system (public and private combined) is like a building that we knew lacked fire precautions. And now we see it burning. Whatever the plan for tomorrow may be, the fire needs to be put out immediately. This cannot be done with shouts and threats, but with planning, with incentives, with care for the people of the system and for those that they serve.
