Greek Health Minister: “Cancer is not urgent unless in final stages”

Huh? As if we didn’t know it, but yet cynicism is always surprising. Greece’s Health Minister claims to know better, when cancer patients need to be treated. Adonis Georgiadis, a History Dept graduate who made a career selling controversial books on television, describes “cancer” as “a disease that does not need urgent treatment unless in final stage.”

Spraking to US dialy Washington Post, Georgiadisexplained how the Greek Health Ministry deals with uninsured patients.

Georgiadis said that emergency cases are still being treated at public hospitals irrespective of insurance status. “But,” he said, “illnesses like cancer are not considered urgent, unless you are in the final stages.”

Greek Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis said that the government is attempting to aid the uninsured, creating a $17.6 million fund for the most acute cases, using money seized in a crackdown on tax evasion. He hopes the fund will be dramatically boosted by the end of the year.

“But Greeks, he said, must also understand that the public-heath system was broken before the crisis by years by mismanagement and corruption. The state was sometimes paying three to four times more than other European countries for certain prescription drugs, with middle men, doctors and pharmacies pocketing the difference. If hospitals are facing shortages, he said, it is because they are having a hard time adhering to more reasonable budgets.” (full article Washington Post)

What Adonis Georgiadis apparently forgot not mention is that Greeks have been paying for their entire working life contributions to the state insurance funds and that this paid amount of money vanishes in the air the moment is hit by unemployment.

PS If I work 30 years + pay average €200 per month = € 72,000. Supposedly I am healthy and had only minor health problems all these years. So where is this money???