Specific complaint about the existence of a «VIP» ICU, was made by the Secretary General of the Federation of Hospital Doctors' Associations of Greece (OENGE) and Director of Neurosurgery at the General Hospital of Nice, Panos Papanikolaou. The complaint follows similar public reports by representatives of health trade unions, including Mr. Papanikolaou, which caused the intense conflict between the government and the opposition.
Speaking to Kontra24, he said that the one ICU for VIP patients is located in the university clinic of «Evangelismos» under the professor of pulmonology and intensive care at the University of Athens, Anastasia Kotanidou.
The latter, who is also an adviser to the government on intensive care issues, had just last week, in a press conference, denied their existence.
The above complaint comes after public complaints by representatives of the trade unions of health care staff in the NHS, who spoke of preferential treatment of names for a bed in an ICU «with doormen, university professors of the government court, who are also advisors to the Prime Minister».
He himself P. Papanikolaou, speaking again to Kontra, had referred to «specific “professorial-university” wards, intensive care unit beds “cavalcade”».
In the same broadcast, the president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Workers Michael Giannakos had complained that there were 47 ICU beds empty. «Why are they vacant when we have 114 patients out? They are kept for “special cases, metropolitans, politicians, etc.”».
Also, speaking to tvxs.gr the general secretary of OENGE, Panagiotis Papanikolaou, said: «I ask persistently every day and have never answered. Of the covid-19 deaths announced by the EODY every day, how many died intubated outside the ICU in temporary ventilators and common wards while on the waiting list for ICU? They have never answered.».
Inequality in access to ICUs is also recorded as a dominant view in society. According to the latest Prorata poll for Tvxs.gr, 66% states that access to ICUs is not equal and some people enjoy preferential treatment.
At the same time, from the report of tvxs.gr shows that there are several ways to bypass the priority in terms of who will eventually be admitted to an ICU.
The majority of citizens, even the voters of the South-West, reject it, according to the same poll, and the claim of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, made from the floor of the Parliament, that there is no difference in mortality inside and outside the ICU. 66% of citizens state that clearly those treated outside ICUs have a higher chance of mortality compared to those treated in ICUs. This is something, moreover, that experts have been making a point of emphasising at every turn, stressing that the non-hospitalisation of intubated patients in ICUs sharply increases the risk of death. It is characteristic that Greece is among the top countries in the world for coronavirus mortality.
