FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The idyllic islands of Greece are teeming with tourists, but their health system is on the verge of collapse.
The loss of life of a young pregnant woman and her unborn child were just two of at least nine potentially preventable deaths in Greece this summer, due to a chronic shortage of ambulances and health care personnel, even before the country started dealing with raging fires, writes Politico.
In some hospitals on the islands, the article states, there are not enough permanent doctors and generally, the needs are covered in the short term with doctors from the mainland, lured by financial incentives. Ambulance services are in an even worse state: In Cyclades and Dodecades, there is only one ambulance that is available 24 hours a day.
And this problem is not only observed on the islands: even in Athens, it is further underlined, about 50 ambulances operate, instead of the 85 to 90 that are needed.
"We have to review this service from scratch because across the country, there are huge gaps," Giorgos Mathiopoulos, president of the Greek Ambulance Service (EKAV), told POLITICO.
In June, a 63-year-old woman died on the island of Kos in the back of a truck while being transported to the local hospital after a crash because the island's only ambulance was busy with another emergency. Kos, an island of 40,000 permanent residents that welcomes more than 1 million tourists in the summer, has three new ambulances, but can only operate one as it has only 10 paramedics, two of whom will go out on pension next year.
Lini një Përgjigje