Pavlos Polakis

Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis has sparked a fresh social media storm with comments that were branded by users as "immoral" and "vulgar" after he appeared to accuse an opposition candidate in the European elections of using his disability to get a job in the public sector.

The debate by Parliament's Ethics Committee on Wednesday was indeed a revealing one with regard to ruling SYRIZA's mind-set. Government MPs on the committee decided to make use of Article 86, concerning the prosecution of ministers, to help shield Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis and the former coalition partner and Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos from prosecution.

Greek MPs are next Friday to decide whether to lift the immunity of former health minister Andreas Loverdos, an MP with Movement for Change (formerly PASOK), who has been implicated in an alleged bribery scandal involving Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis.

Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis and the president of the national union of public hospital workers (POEDIN), Michalis Yiannakos, argued in public on Thursday over who would speak through the bullhorn during a demonstration by cleaners from hospitals around the country outside the Health Ministry in Athens.

The Greek Parliament will have to decide whether to lift the parliamentary immunity of Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis as the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office sent to the legislature the file of the judicial probe of whether the minister surreptitiously recorded and leaked to the press his conversation with Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras.

There will be thousands of hirings in the National Health System (ESY) over the next four years, according to Administrative Reform Minister Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou, Health Minister Andreas Xanthos and his deputy Pavlos Polakis after a meeting on Monday morning.

Members of the national union of public hospital workers (POEDIN) and cleaners from Dromokaitio psychiatric hospital held a protest rally outside the Parliament on Thursday, requesting the renewal of their expiring contracts.
One lane on main Vassilisis Sofias avenue was blocked, disrupting traffic on Syntagma square.

Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras today told Athens lower court prosecutor Haralambos Mastrantonakis that he is convinced that Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis surreptiously recorded their conversation when Polakis called him following reports that the Bank of Greece was probing a 100,000 euro loan that the minister was given by Attica Bank.

Testifying before a prosecutor Tuesday, Bank of Greece Governor Yiannis Stournaras is said to have accused Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis of illegally recording a telephone conversation between them.

Stournaras allegedly claimed that Polakis told him, during the conversation on his cell phone, that he was recording the call but had not requested his consent to do so.

Eighteen members of the national union of hospital workers (POEDIN) have filed a lawsuit demanding 270,000 euros in compensation from Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis for referring to them as "trash" during a chat with journalists.

The union members said in the lawsuit that Polakis had "systematically" insulted them in public.