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Marina Nikolova

The procedures for the establishment of the united health services organization that will allow all physicians to serve patients from different health insurance funds started at a faster pace. The manager of the organization is expected to be appointed after 15 days and it will start to operate across the country on June 1, said Health Minister Andreas Loverdos during a meeting with doctors’ unions. It was originally planned the organization to be piloted in Crete and Thessaloniki, but the Ministry has taken a definite decision to launch the large project nationwide on the same day.
 
Minister Loverodos said that this decision was prompted by the strikes of doctors in the last ten days before the vote of the law on reforms. Then the patients of Greece's largest insurance fund IKA were directed to private physicians serving other insurance funds which was the result of an idea and arrangement between the ministry and private practitioners. Loverdos noted that the weaknesses and the advantages of this scheme became clear and it would be put into practice by the new organization. So, all details will be accurately developed by June 1, when the health services organization will be effective.

Important news for the medical staff, cleaners and administration of hospitals and polyclinics is that nobody will be fired and they will continue to work as usual. Moreover, Minister Loverdos explained that the five hospitals of IKA will be connected to the national health system. He and the Deputy Minister of Employment George Koutroumanis announced the plans of the ministries of health and of employment to enforce the health care law. The ministers gathered representatives of doctors' unions at the meeting to invite them to take part in a dialogue over the next three and a half months. This it the transition period to the new system of primary medical care from early June, taking into account the experience of practitioners and the knowledge of scientists. The union of IKA doctors, hospital doctors, private doctors and representatives of doctors' unions in Athens and Thessaloniki boycotted the invitation of the ministers and did not attend the meeting. Representatives of the organizations that refused to participate in the first meeting between the ministries and doctors unions sharply criticized the president of the Panhellenic Medical Association Emmanuel Kalokerinos for attending the meeting.
 
"For better or worse, this is already a law and after being already voted, I am obliged to respond to the call for dialogue and to represent my colleagues. When we read the law published in the Official Gazette, then we can get a position because you say one thing, vote another, and third is printed. Your task is difficult, but I believe you will do it," said Kalokerinos. Representatives of the union of pharmacists, the union of family physicians, the union of dentists, the union representatives of employees in the private and public sectors - GSEE and ADEDY - and other medical organizations were at the meeting. Although the president of the union of state hospitals employees refused to attend the meeting as representative of the union he came as a member of ADEDY. IKA’s manager Robert Spiropoulos and the manager of the civil servants insurance fund Kyriakos Souliotis also attended the meeting.

The president of the union of pharmacists Todoros Abadzoglou asked where the money and the amount of the subsidy for the first day of operation of the new united organization of health services will come from. He noted that pharmacists have outstanding recipes from April 2010 issued to patients insured at the civil servants fund. The chairman of the union of dentists Thanasis Katsikis said it was not necessary to create dentists department in the newly formed organization, and noted that 90% of the dentists in Greece were private practicioners and only a few worked in the polyclinics of IKA. Katsikis proposed also prevention and free services for patients under 18 years of age and the formation of a rural dentist institution.

"We could not continue like before. High prices with high costs for services and no adequate quality,"said Minister Koutroumanis. The Deputy Minister of Employment identified three main tasks to be implemented in the coming months: 1) new health map of Greece that will help to create offices for health insured easy access, 2) labour relations between the private doctors and the new organization and the establishment of clear rules for cooperation, 3) level and quality of services. The Health Minister said that the new health map should be ready by mid-April to know where there is a need to recruit doctors.