Amid Cutbacks, Greek Doctors Offer
Message to Poor: You Are Not Alone
In Athens
lies one of Greece’s largest oncology departments. Dr. Kostas Syrigos, the head
of the department, has seen almost everything. However, nothing he had seen up
until this point prepared him for Elena, an unemployed woman whose breast
cancer had been diagnosed a year before she came to him. Elena’s cancer had grown to the size of an
orange and had broken through her skin. The article states that she was left
draining the wound with paper napkins. Leaving everyone in tears, Dr. Syrigos
claimed that until recently everybody was able to get help in this country. In
July 2011, Greece signed a supplemental loan agreement with international
lenders to ward off financial collapse. However this left Greek people who were
unable to foot their bill when their benefits expired to pay all of the cost
out of pocket. Greece currently had 1.2 million long-term unemployed and half
of that lack health insurance. To make matters worse, a new $17.5 billion
austerity package of budget cuts and tax increases was agreed upon on Wednesday
with Greece’s international lenders which will only make matters worse. “In
Greece right now, to be unemployed means death,” spoken by Dr. Syrigos. When
cancer is diagnosed in somebody whom is uninsured, the system ignores them.
Supplies have gotten so low that some patients have been force to bring their
own supplies, like stents, and syringes, for treatments. This crisis has left
doctors like Dr. Syrigo to set up programs where they collect unused medicines
and medical supplies from pharmacies, hospitals and even patients who have died
but it’s still not enough especially with the numbers increasing of those who don’t
have insurance.
The idea
of loosing unemployment benefits as well as loosing health benefits has become
a global issue that is affecting families all over. Not having the finances to
seek medical attention is a problem that will affect mortality rates as well as
affect the way in which families live. With low medical care and illnesses like
Elena’s, it makes it even harder to seek employment which in turn affects the
way in which one can provide for the family. If Elena wouldn’t have found help,
it would have only been a matter of time before she would have passed away.
Although Elena was a little older and didn’t have younger children that we know
of, if she did, and if she passed away, her young children would be left
without a mother. Not having medical care could also affect fertility rates
because of women not being able to afford proper care when pregnant as well as
mortality rates in infants due to mothers not having proper care while pregnant
and infants not having proper care after being born. Even though this is a
problem well-known unemployment continues to rise globally and affect society
as a whole.
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