Greek Crisis

Greek debt crisis: ‘Of all the damage, healthcare has been hit the worst’

06/12/2017

Critically low on staff, medicine, even gloves, after five years of austerity Greece’s state-run hospitals and clinics rely on volunteer medics and patience of patients

By Angelique Chrisafis
Thursday 9 July 2015

Above a dark, tatty arcade of wholesale button traders and empty shop fronts in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, one mother was rocking a sick baby and another was carrying a toddler as they waited to see a volunteer paediatrician in the brightly painted clinic run by the Greek branch of the NGO Doctors of the World.

“We’re already facing a humanitarian crisis in Greece,” said Sofia Garane who runs the clinic. “Of all the damage done during the last five years, healthcare has been hit the worst.”