Hospital grant entering final stretch
A 16.5-million-euro donation by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation to bolster public hospitals’ response to the coronavirus pandemic is entering the final stretch towards giving 15 hospitals the ability to treat a total of 6,500 more patients every year.
“The pandemic served as an urgent reminder of the need to support the National Health System and, more importantly, the people behind it,” the foundation’s president, Andreas Drakopoulos, said in an announcement on Thursday. He referred to the need to ensure that patients have access to high-quality healthcare services, but also to medical and nursing staff and the “infrastructure and equipment that must be at their disposal so that they can do their job without hindrance.”
The money from the foundation is going towards 175 new intensive care (ICU) and high-dependency unit (HDU) beds at 15 hospitals in different parts of the country, including the capital’s Evangelismos and Agia Sophia Children’s hospital, Piraeus’ Tzaneio, Thessaloniki’s Gennimatas, Lamia’s Vostaneio and Crete’s Venizeleio.
The grant also includes five years’ worth of intensive care training for medical and nursing staff.
