Recently, 4 leading Kytherian Associations and Foundations have highlighted the problem with their joint intervention. Our compatriots described in dark colours the situation we are experiencing in our islands in the field of health care.

The O.M SY.RIZ.A-P.S of Kythera points out that the General Hospital - Health Centre of Kythera «Trifylleio» is already facing serious problems due to the lack of medical staff. Our Hospital has basically only 5 qualified doctors against 14 organic positions. There are also significant shortages in other staffing, something that the unions are rightly pointing out. In fact, the rural clinics in Chora and Karvounades have been closed, with all that this means for the residents of the region.

SY.RIZ.A-P.S. has repeatedly criticized the overall government policy in the health sector. A policy that leads to the downgrading of public health services in favour of private interests. Public infrastructures worth millions of euros (paid for by us citizens) are being devalued and underused. Patients are systematically evacuated far from their place of residence and are forced to go to private hospitals and diagnostics in the capital. As a result, they pay dearly for services that the state should be providing.

Population decline, lack of social and cultural life, difficulty in finding housing (due to the lack of adequate housing policies for civil servants on the move) and inadequate public transport discourage medical staff from filling specialist vacancies. The alleged «support measures» of the Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiades, are proving inadequate and the inaction of the Municipality of Kythera to take advantage of opportunities (e.g. on the issue of social housing where other municipalities seem to be successfully active) exacerbates the problem.

The policy of provincial devastation is affecting our region intensely and as long as it is not reversed by a progressive government it will lead to new negative developments.

The residents remember very well the 2015-2019 period of the SYRIZA government when the Ministry of Health, supporting the then administration, quickly filled all the available positions of doctors in the “Trifilio” hospital. They also remember the impressive quarterly statistics published by the administration on hospitalizations and operations that went from good to better

The then commander legally secured the possibility of a blood bank, the supply of a CT scanner, advanced equipment for orthopaedic surgery, an oxygen production unit and a study for an artificial kidney unit.

All this in a period of memorandum and tight margins in the economy.

Today in «Greece 2.0», there is money for OPEKEPE, the cats of direct assignments and the daily workers...

The organization of SYRIZA Kythera points out that the algorithms of the Ministry of Health and the recommendations of the ministerial environment lead to what the Kythera associations emphasize in their letter: The conversion and legal conversion of the Kythera hospital into a Health Center. A conversion that will «relieve» the Minister of alleged «appeals» to fill the vacant organic positions of doctors.

We support every effort to prevent the legalization of the existing degradation of our hospital, which has already become an understaffed health center due to the responsibility of those in power.

Only a progressive government will bring the rights of the people of the province back to life and that is what we are fighting for.