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Victoria Mindova

Medical staff in Greece has announced today a 24-hour strike against the cuts in the health care system. Ten days ago, the Greek parliament voted on the agreement for the second bailout from Europe. Basically, it concerns the reduction of costs of pensions, salaries and health care services. After the government has failed to meet the targets set in the 2011 budget and to significantly reduce the deficit, the Troika and the government have turned to further cuts in health care. The hole to be filled is about 4.4 billion euro. Of this, 1.3 billion euro will be saved from the expenditure of the Ministry of Finance, 400 million will be cut from spending on medicines and medical aid, and hospital supplies will be cut by 250 million.

The reason why doctors, nurses and other medical staff are out on the streets this week is that in addoition to the cuts already announced, the government has decided to cut the payment of extra hours by 17%. This should save another 50 million euro in public spending. "We are working with reduced staff and the needs of citizens are not less," said to GRReporter a longstanding employee in the public health care system of Greece, who wished to remain anonymous. She stressed that the hospital staff is working at full capacity with reduced resources and staff. "We do not work overtime because we want to, but because many hospitals lack staff. We only hope the redundancies will stop, and hiring new staff is out of the question."

A Bulgarian Stefka Tsekova took part in the nurses' protest march. She has been working in the Greek health care system for 18 years now. She has been a special educator in the training centre for children and adults with special needs and mental retardation for almost 16 years. Centres and mental health clinics in Greece both for adults and for children will suffer the most from the growing crisis, say employees in the sector. According to the financial plan set out in the new memorandum of financial aid, their budgets will be cut by about 50%.

"The new measures stop the Ministry of Health subsidies for mental health centres. In addition, a bill is currently being prepared that will transfer us to the Ministry of Employment even though we provide services in the health care sector. There will be even bigger cuts and it seems that the trend is for the state to be relieved of the responsibility of taking care of disadvantaged people," said Stefka Tsekova to GRReporter. She explained that most mental health centres, including the one where she works, are largely self-funded and do not rely solely on money from government funding.

"We take care of the socialization of more than four hundred children and young people aged between five and twenty-eight years and only 40% of our budget comes from government subsidies. The remaining 60% comes from European programmes, private donations and sponsorship. Parents or relatives pay nothing for the childcare at our centre." According to the operating scheme so far, the state paid only the salaries of medical staff in these institutions and a small part of the remaining costs, and the larger burden fell on alternative financing methods. The economic crisis and the worsening environment have reduced the flow of funds, especially in the last two years. The special educator emphasized that if the state withdraws completely from this type of social policy, many children and young people with mental retardation will remain in the street. They are unable to take care of themselves, and in many cases, their families cannot take care of them either.

The Bulgarian educator defined the crisis in Greece and the changes that it has brought as a shock therapy for the people. "This is especially as regards last year and people will need time to adjust to new realities." She stressed that the country has a very good culture of care for disadvantaged people and it should not be destroyed because of the economic crisis. "If educational centres for children and adults with disabilities are privatized and transferred entirely into private hands, the parents will have to pay for the services rendered. This will disadvantage families, who lack sufficient resources, but have a mentally retarted child." Tsekova concluded that the state should not start with cuts in the care of helpless people, but should focus on more unproductive sectors rather than on social benefits.