Tsipras on Mitsotakis: Either he publicly apologizes or he resigns

The official opposition is putting intense pressure on the Prime Minister's Office, in the shadow of revelations about the Tsiodras-Lytras study, which had known Maximos since June, but concealed it, culminating in Mitsotakis' provocative statement in Parliament.

The president himself has been very actively involved in the intense confrontation. Alexis Tsipras, who today made another harsh statement against the prime minister, calling on him to apologize publicly or resign.

Arriving at the Council of the Party of European Socialists (PES), the leader of the official opposition was asked by a journalist about the developments and emphasized «in any other European country, in any other country of the European Union, if the Prime Minister had been caught lying in Parliament on such a critical issue, affecting the lives of tens, hundreds, thousands, I would say, of our fellow citizens, he would either have come out publicly to apologize or he would have resigned. In Greece, however, neither of these things happened. And this confirms the great democratic deficit that our country has today.’.

«The government's choices have led to the current mass deaths.»

Earlier, the prime minister and the spokesperson for SYRIZA-PS demanded answers, referring to a government crime.

Speaking on Kokkino 105.5 FM, Nasos Iliopoulos noted, «We all remember Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Parliament a few days ago, responding to Alexis Tsipras in a very aggressive tone, saying that he has no indication that there is higher mortality among patients who are intubated outside the ICU compared to those who are in the ICU,» noted Nasos Iliopoulos.

«Until then, we knew that those on the front lines of the battle, such as Mr. Kapravelos, were saying exactly the opposite, clearly stating that a patient who is intubated outside the ICU has no chance of survival,» he pointed out.

«However, since yesterday, we know something completely different: as early as last May, Mr. Mitsotakis allegedly had in his possession a scientific study by Messrs. Tsiodras and Lyras, which concludes that the mortality rate of intubated patients outside the ICU is 87%,» emphasized Nasos Iliopoulos. He added that «one of the most critical conclusions of the study is that 38.51% of the total losses studied are people who could have lived if the situation in the National Health System had been better, if we had not had the pressure and shortages that we have been experiencing in the health system recently.».

Referring to yesterday's announcement by the government spokesperson, he stressed that «Mr. Oikonomou said a lot, but failed to answer two crucial questions: whether he denies that Mr. Mitsotakis was aware of this study long before making this shameful statement in Parliament, and –in essence– tell us what the government did, once it knew about the study, to address the huge shortcomings it identified in the health system.».

«The fact that in the fourth wave of the pandemic we are experiencing a daily death toll and are twice the European average in terms of losses per million inhabitants is clearly the responsibility of the Mitsotakis government. It is something we have been led to by a political choice, a choice not to do what should have been done,» the press spokesman stressed.

Another indication that the situation we are experiencing today was the government's choice was Kyriakos Mitsotakis« statement in the summer that we have many regional hospitals– at the same time that one of the most important conclusions of the study by Mr. Tsiodras and Mr. Lytras is the enormous inequality that exists between hospitalization in ICUs in Attica and hospitalization in ICUs in the regions.» «In some cases, the term “intensive care unit” should probably be put in quotation marks because there was no properly trained staff; they were simply beds that were christened »intensive care units' to make the government's creative accounting 'work'," emphasized Nasos Iliopoulos.

Finally, he added that «it is the government's responsibility that even now the private sector in healthcare is out of the fight, essentially making profits on the backs of society.».