Editorial: Mirror

The many lacks and problems faced in hospitals at our most popular tourist destinations such as the islands do not merely expose our heavy industry of tourism.

They remind us that our health system is heavily ailing.

That reality is clearly demonstrated in the exhausting work schedules imposed on doctors and nurses on the islands in order to meet the heightened needs of the summer months.

At the hospital in Santorini which opened with celebrations three years ago the obstectrics clinic and surgery clinic would have shut down if the sole anaesthesiologist were to take a vacation.

According to charges reported on in Ta Nea understaffing is due to a lack of economic incentives.

The state used to squander money and in some cases still does.

One wonders in amazement why it does not offer incentives to lure young doctors to work in areas which desperately need residents so as not to be abandoned in the winter and so that residents and thousands of visitors will not be left to their own devices.

It is said and rightly so that a country’s health system is the mirror of its society.

In that system we can no longer afford to see a heavily ailing patient.

We need a properly functioning system which cares for, treats, and cures patients.