Th. Plevris: The government has tripled the ICU beds

“It is important to see what model of health we want beyond dogmatism,” said Health Minister Thanos Plevris, responding to the KKE’s topical question about the consequences of government policy in the field of public health and the “new NSS”.

Mr. Plevris rejected the criticism that the government does not support the public health system, stating that today we have 12,000 people who have entered the NSS as auxiliary health personnel, 2,069 auxiliary doctors and more than 2,000 permanent doctors. In the previous five years, a total of 2,754 doctors were announced, and in the two years of the ND government, 2,890 positions of permanent doctors were announced and more than 2,000 positions were filled, while for barren areas that are not covered, the vacancies are announced again. We increased the funds for the NSS to 4,520,000,000 for 2022, said the minister. For the extraordinary expenses for 2021, 944,000,000 euros were foreseen and given, while for 2022, given that a forecast is made that there will be a recession in the course of the pandemic, 736,000,000 euros are foreseen. “And yes, if other funds are needed, as was done in 2021, they will be given depending on the course of the pandemic. Also, 1.5 billion euros are foreseen from the Recovery Fund for the NSS”, the minister assured.

Regarding the ICUs, Mr. Plevris stated that in September 2019 at the NSS there were 557 beds and today there are 1,300 and they are constantly increasing. He stressed that today, the NSS also has at its disposal all the ICU beds of the private sector for both non-COVID and COVID cases – and at the moment there are over 200 cases that are in private structures. In Athens, he said that at the moment there is no pressure on the public system, unlike in Thessaloniki and Thessaly, where we have requested and are getting beds from the private sector. Especially in Thessaly we got 365 beds from the private sector for both covid and non-covid incidents. In Thessaloniki, “Arogi” has given 200 beds, “General Clinic” 88 beds, “Blue Cross” has given 30 beds, “Bioclinic” 15 beds and the Inter-Balkan 30 beds.

The minister noted that the “order” does not mean that the state will not pay for private hospitals. On the contrary, he will be obliged to reimburse (as he does today) the hospitalization prescribed by EOPPY. Therefore, public money should not be squandered with horizontal “checks”. He also stressed that 85% of cases are unvaccinated, as 90% of hospitalizations are unvaccinated. 95% of ICU hospitalizations involve the unvaccinated. He noted that at present we are in 73% of the adult population that has been vaccinated. At the same time, he stressed that we were “the first to get monoclonal from the European agreement package, as they were approved by the European Medicines Agency on 12/11 and on 11/12 we had the monoclonal drugs, which are also given free of charge to those who need them” .

Source: AMPE