Publicly funded health care

Doctors and nurses working at Greece's public hospitals were on strike on Thursday and their unions held a protest march from the Health Ministry to Parliament in central Athens in demand of more staff hirings and better salaries.

The political leadership of the Ministry of Health will detail the new measures for income support of the doctors in the National Health System (ESY) at a press conference this morning. Additionally, they will outline the healthcare reform goals over the next three years, many of which were discussed yesterday at a meeting held at the Maximos Mansion.

A meeting on the reform goals for the next three years regarding the national healthcare system was held on Tuesday morning at the Maximos Mansion, led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Doctors and dentists of the public national healthcare system (ESY) will soon be able to do private work outside their regular working hours and on-call duties provided that the operation of the public hospital where they work is not disturbed and that they do not divert patients from public clinics, according to a decision signed on Thursday by Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis.

One in two people who currently hold an administrative post in the public health services did not pass the tests for re-employment in the same or a similar position through the new appraisal system that came into effect in November 2023. 

Medical laboratory scientists working in the private sector will be walking off the job on Wednesday, the first day of what may turn out to be a protracted strike that will affect diagnostic clinics and labs, but is not expected to have a significant impact on public hospitals.

Private doctors will be allowed to perform medical procedures in National Health System (ESY) hospitals, including surgeries, according to a Health Ministry amendment to a bill of the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family. 

Accountability and transparency are severely lacking in the National Health System.

A study of 90 hospitals and their accounting statements from 2012-20 by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) has found rudimentary reporting that focuses on what state subsidies are spent on and makes no mention of how supplies are used and the state and age of the inventory.

Two medical diagnostic clinics in the northern port city of Thessaloniki charged insured clients unauthorized extra fees for tests prescribed by their doctors, an investigation revealed on Thursday.

As part of the effort to reduce patients' waiting time for operations in Greece, the National Health Service (ESY) will on February 1 introduce a digital filing system for hospitals' scheduled surgeries and their order of priority.