Greece forcibly recruits private doctors amid suffocation of ICUs full of coronavirus patients

The Ministry of Health of Greece has begun to mobilize private doctors by force to face the suffocation that public hospitals are experiencing in the north and center of the country during this fourth wave of the pandemic of coronavirus.

Currently between 100 and 150 additional doctors are needed in the north of Greece and in the Thessaly region, basically pulmonologists and specialists in general medicine, but as of Monday afternoon only 20 private doctors had agreed to temporarily work in public health.

A ministry spokeswoman told Efe that the recruitment process began today and that the letters to the affected doctors will begin to come out in the coming days.

The director of the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Papanikolau hospital in Thessaloniki (north of the country), Nikos Kaprávelos, described the situation in the country’s hospitals as a “nightmare”, with patients intubated outside the ICU.

“It is a nightmare to have a patient with shortness of breath, not have oxygen and tell him that there is no bed in the intensive care unit”, Kaprávelos said today in statements to the private chain Skai.

The doctor considered the hiring of private doctors little useful to face this crisis, because, as he said, although all help is necessary, a single doctor can contribute little to a specialized unit.

“The health system has been understaffed for years … When we say that mobilization is necessary, we mean the entire system, the public and the private, which must act as one”, added.

This second recruitment in a year – the first occurred in March during the third wave – occurs at a time when 6,000 public health workers are suspended for not having been vaccinated.

Greece imposed in September the obligatory nature of the vaccine against the covid-19 to all the sanitary ware, as well as workers in centers for older employees, and left without a job and salary while those who did not are immunized. It is estimated that around 95% of doctors and 75% of health workers were vaccinated on that date.

Some specialists like Kaprávelos ask that, given the galloping course of the fourth wave, this obligation be extended to other sectors, such as restaurants, but the government of the conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis has not wanted to take the step for now.

In recent weeks the number of infections has been increasing exponentially and also that of intubated patients and deaths.

On Monday, 6,950 new cases of coronavirus were registered, 72 deaths and the number of patients connected to a respirator amounted to 551, of which 83% are unvaccinated, while 16% have taken the full schedule. Greece has around 10.7 million inhabitants.

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