The text below was prepared by Metropolitan Community Clinic at Helliniko
in December 2012 and is our entire proposal pertaining to
uninsured patients. We call upon all
community clinics in Greece
"NO ONE ALONE IN THE CRISIS"
A PROPOSAL BY THE VOLUNTEER COMMUNITY
CLINICS FOR THE UNINSURED
A national public health system which uses
insurance as the only criterion for a patient to be served is, by definition, a
failure. It is inhuman in a country
where unemployment is close to 30% and where undocumented immigrants number
about one million. A health system which
serves only the insured citizens and leaves about 1/3 of its people without
care gravely endangers public health.
Five years ago, when there were far fewer
unemployed and almost everyone was insured, Greece
Today, the economic crisis has up-rooted
everything; high unemployment, illegal labour practices and severe under-employment
are rampant. We believe that to achieve the goal of a universal access to
public health (a principle which is at the very heart of the Greece
The lack of a viable public health policy
for the uninsured creates serious, irreversible health issues in patients with
devastating diseases, exposes the entire population of the country and its visitors
to infectious and contagious diseases and invalidates the constitutionally established
right of equal access to health care.
But most importantly it promotes a negative
reality in our society, a reality not consistent with the principles and values
of humanity, culture, dignity, justice, equality and the principles of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and children's rights.
The economic policy of the last few years
has led to continued economic weakness and a critical mass of unemployed. Thousands of patients are unemployed and find
it impossible to pay private and business debts or pay into insurance funds. The result is that this "epidemic"
of uninsured people is reaching uncontrollable and dangerous dimensions.
The Community Clinics were born from the
National Health System’s exclusion of the uninsured, unemployed and homeless. The Community Clinics can not nor should they
try to completely fill in the increasingly enormous and dangerous chasm in
public health. On the other hand, we are
not about to abandon our patients; we will not give up on a third of the
population.
The Community Clinics serve patients with
chronic health problems who have no access to either the public or private health
system. We are primary care facilities,
providing health care and medicines to our patients. We work together with hospitals, private
clinics and laboratories in the community.
The clinics also carry out drug collection
drives, collecting donated drugs, recording and categorizing them, and then
making them available to the other community clinics and hospitals. The medicines are valued and made available
to the hospitals after being accepted by the hospital’s governing board. The commercial value of medicines and
materials made available to the hospitals averages, and sometimes exceeds 80,000
euros in a small county.
These volunteer clinics are providing
primary care and supporting an ever-increasing tide of uninsured adults and
children. Over the last two years the
numbers of people resorting to the clinics has increased so drastically that
the clinics are hard-pressed to cope. The
health of the individual and public health is severely threatened.
Given the above, we propose the following:
• Complete hospital coverage of the
uninsured, in emergency situations and in the Emergency Department, for the
entire length of the hospital stay and, if needed, clinical exams inside and
away from the hospital. These services,
while theoretically available under the law, are not provided in practice.
• Free hospitalization for emergency
surgery and stays in the Intensive Care Unit
• Complete maternity coverage including
medicines, pre natal monitoring, coverage of the birth, whether caesarean or
normal, and hospitalization in the neo-natal unit, as required
• Complete care, for children and minors,
including required laboratory testing and medications.
• A free and complete program of vaccinations
to be the responsibility of the Center
of Disease Control
• Free hospitalization and medication for
both inpatient and outpatient treatment for those suffering from infectious and
contagious diseases.
• Deletion of past debts of individuals to insurance
funds, the continuation of hospitalization coverage during the whole period of
unemployment or at least for a period of three years. The unemployed are to be issued with a
special health book. Hospitals should
provide pharmaceutical coverage of beneficiaries from their pharmacies as well
as clinical exams.
• Free access to the medical outpatient
clinic of the hospital for the chronically ill from severe and life-threatening
diseases conditions. These would include
heart disease, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, malignancy, chronic renal
failure, haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, psychosis, Alzheimer’s, genetic
diseases, and those suffering cognitive and motor deprivation. Chemotherapy should be offered to cancer
patients without charge.
• A brochure should be made available in
all hospitals, fully describing the conditions attached to the special health
booklet.
We reiterate a long-standing demand for a
radical reorganization of the Greek National Health Service. Currently, in this time of cutbacks, neither
our insured fellow citizens nor the uninsured, are receiving anything close to
adequate health care.
The volunteer Community Clinics will
continue to provide primary health care and to collect medications and
materials for the clinics and hospitals.
In cases where a local community clinic receives financial support from
the local government or authority, there will be a reckoning at the end of the
year of the amount remaining at the hospital of that community available for
the uninsured.
The Community Clinics believe that
individual and public health is a responsibility of the state and should not be
left to volunteers. The major investment of a state is its people. They are the
capital. A population in good health is the interest and bond yields. When those people can maintain a decent life, have
access to health and education, then the foundations are laid for development,
self-sufficiency, and independence and corruption will be discouraged.
Volunteer Community Clinics