The Secretary General of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, in his speech yesterday in Parliament during the debate on the bill on secondary health care, addressed to the government and said: «Take back now, and without much ado, the draft bill you brought for secondary care.» He pointed out that the bill «has already been rejected by the vast majority of the Greek people and by the entire medical and health care world» and accused the government of «prevarication» in order «to pay off the bills to the «crows», the big clinic owners and the big private health monopolies». «That's what it is, since together you drafted, co-decided and co-formulated this bill,» he added, addressing the government.
He said that in order for the government to defend the interests of the large private health chains, it does not hesitate to resort to slander and repression and denounced both the summons to trial of the president of the Federation of Hospital Doctors of Greece, Afroditi Reggiou, «because she was leading a mobilisation with the slogan “now the struggle for the defence of the health of the people must be strengthened”», and «the encirclement by riot police forces within a few seconds of 50 hospital doctors who two days ago made a symbolic occupation of the Ministry of Health».
«If there had been a traffic accident, the understaffed ambulance would have arrived more slowly. If a child at Children's needs surgery, he or she would have to wait up to 3 years. If any of those who managed to register with the “personal doctor” attempt to make an appointment, they will wait until after February-March and we'll see,’ he noted. He called the bill “a reactionary continuation and at the same time a reactionary cut for public health care” and noted that the problems of public hospitals have been created by all governments, whatever mix they have applied in their policies. D. Koutsoumbas said that the bill constitutes a »reactionary cut« for the following reasons:
a) Because in conditions where the lists of regular clinics and surgeries, interventional and imaging examinations in public structures and hospitals are nowadays beyond all limits, the way out of the appointment with the doctor in a private clinic or private centre will become a forced one-way street for thousands who will find themselves in need.
b) Because another obstacle is removed to become an easy clientele for the private sector, to put their hand even deeper in their pockets, so that the big private hospitals can make a profit.
c) Because, if this abomination is passed, patients are condemned to lower quality health services and dangerous conditions of care.».
Referring in detail to the consequences for public hospitals, hospital doctors and patients of Article 10 of the bill, he said that ‘it overturns a basic principle of the constitution of the NHS, that of the full and exclusive employment of doctors«.
«The purpose of the government's bill is to rule out any future support for clinics and surgeries with permanent staff to operate in modern conditions,» he noted. He described as «doubly dangerous» the government's argument that this new bill «will improve the income of doctors», stating that «the formulation of this salary schedule is pure blackmail to doctors who, more or less, are being told, “I gave you the opportunity to improve your position by grabbing it from patients..., if you didn't take it, it's not our fault”.».
He denounced the government that with the introduction of 10 articles concerning the doctors« salary scale, »it attempts to exploit the specific salary scale, mainly to address legal obstacles, in order not to implement the decisions of the Council of State which ruled as unconstitutional the cuts in doctors« salaries». «With this bill, your state admits that it will not boost the income of doctors, health workers, will not proceed with wage increases, will not immediately implement the final decisions of the CoE and the Supreme Court to restore wages to pre-memorandum levels, will not restore the 13th and 14th salaries,» he said, adding that similarly “no government has implemented the decisions” of the country's highest courts because they werebecause they were contrary to the »fiscal targets' that ND, PASOK and SYRIZA passed and implemented.".
Regarding Article 7, which provides that ‘the positions that come up «barren« will be advertised as part-time positions and will be covered by private doctors», he pointed out, among other things, that »the huge gaps in the number of doctors in public hospitals, instead of being covered by hiring permanent doctors, will be solved if and when some private doctors choose to do so«. »The employment of private doctors will by definition plug holes. But the needs of patients and public hospitals are fixed and enduring. So how will the days and hours of absence of private doctors be covered?« he noted. D. Koutsoumbas said the bill is also a »reactionary continuation« of previous laws because »they are added to the reactionary changes passed by all previous governments that worsened the conditions of patient care.«.
He said that the constant compass of all governments was «the understaffing of public Primary Health Care facilities, where they and their staff slowly disappeared. And we have reached the point where various private groups have substituted all primary diagnostic operations in the country.».
«Under all the governments, the New Democracy, PASOK and SYRIZA, the private health sector has prospered, with the monopolies of the sector opening “health shops” like mushrooms. It is after all their strategic agreement» he said, while speaking about SYRIZA, he said that «the gentlemen of SYRIZA have no problem that health services are a commodity, patients are customers, doctors are merchants of services. They just tell us that this should be done by rules and not by unfair competition!!! “Grab the egg and cut it...’”.
«The parallel development of the private business sector in health and the public sector with business criteria and commercialization of its operations or their partnerships is not a solution for the people,» he stressed. Citing the experience of the pandemic and its management, he said that «they proved in the bluntest way that health cannot be sold and bought. It proved that the recipes of commercialisation and privatisation have failed.» She did not fail to recall that during the pandemic «the private health sector was nowhere in terms of COVID-19 patient care, but profited from tests and other morbidity».
He also recalled that the commercialized health care systems of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, collapsed one by one, because they had implemented exactly what the government wants to implement here now: That is, a strengthened private entrepreneurial health sector and a public sector with enhanced commercial and entrepreneurial characteristics? This is, after all, the mix promoted by the strategy for the “new NHS”, of which this bill is part.».
D. Koutsoumbas said that the KKE unites its voice with the struggling health workers and calls for «an unyielding struggle with the real solution in sight: The abolition of all business action in health, with the development of an exclusively state-run health system based on the criterion of complete and absolutely free prevention, care and restoration of the health of the people.» «In a planned development of the economy determined and controlled by a genuine people's-worker power-government of the country.
The cause of health, the rejection of the new reactionary health bill, is the cause of the people's struggle. We are on the side of the doctors and nurses who are on strike today, demonstrating here outside the parliament at this hour, demanding the withdrawal of this abomination and calling on the deputies of all wings not to get their hands dirty by giving the final coup de grace to health with their vote,» the Secretary General of the KKE stressed in his speech.
Reject and withdraw the replacement bill
«We are here in support of the struggling health workers, because this bill - abomination of the government must be rejected by the Greek parliament, it must be rejected by all wings, it has been rejected by the Greek people themselves and by all the Unions of Hospital Doctors and Medical Associations throughout the country.
The bill must be withdrawn, doctors and nurses must be recruited en masse in all public hospitals, wages must be increased and labour relations improved, the necessary infrastructure must be built and of course state funding from the state budget must be strengthened,’ said the General Secretary of the KKE's Central Committee, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, at the demonstration of health workers, trade unions and institutions at Syntagma against the bill on secondary care.
