66.8% of citizens – even cancer patients – did not receive the treatment they needed in the previous year, as they could not afford it

The figures of EL.STAT., which may be disappointing for the health of citizens on a nationwide level, are causing intense concern in Crete for all the bodies involved in nutrition and health, but they no longer differ – as was the case in the past – from the general state of health of the Cretans.

In fact, in addition to the data on the state of health of Greek citizens for last year, something that clearly concerns Cretans as well, as representatives of doctors and nurses tell neakriti.gr, is that 66.8% of citizens over of 16-year-olds who needed medical examination or treatment did not receive it as they could not afford it. And this means that the role of public and free Health has practically been abolished, as most citizens, when in need, find it difficult either to visit a doctor or to have tests!

Specifically, 66.8% do not visit a doctor because they do not have to pay for the “free” Health. It is clarified that, during the period of the research, 54% of the citizens needed a medical examination or treatment. Of these, 24.3% did not receive it every time they needed it. In addition to 68% of those who could not afford it, 2.5% waited until the health problem they were facing went away and 1.6% did not go to the doctor because of the long waiting list.

Dentist; Forget it…
It is also noteworthy that 4 out of 5 citizens (77.2%) of those in need of dental care do not go to the dentist also for financial reasons. In fact, the percentage of unmet needs for dental care last year was the highest recorded in the last five years. According to the survey data, 21% of the poor population aged 16 and over did not receive a dental, oral or orthodontic examination or treatment whenever needed.

24.9% with chronic diseases
But even with chronic diseases, the situation is serious. One in four citizens (24.9%) in Greece states that they have a chronic health problem or condition. About 3 out of 10 women (27%) and 1 out of 5 men (22.6%) state a chronic problem or chronic condition. A health problem or condition that lasts or is expected to last more than 6 months, with or without medication, is considered chronic. In fact, 9% of the population aged 16 and over, for a period of six months or more, had limited, due to the health problem, some usual activities of the general population.

88.2% ask friends for moral and financial help. 56.8% of the citizens in our country state that they are completely satisfied with their lives and 88.2% that they have someone to ask for moral, material and financial help. The situation is completely different for 13.2%, who state that they are socially excluded and isolated, while 37.6% report that they experienced loneliness for some time.

“Even in cancer patients”
“Just like in Athens, so in Crete, they cut the exams even for cancer patients”, says, among others, to neakriti.gr, the president of the PAGNI Employees Union, Dimitris Vrysalis.

“The absence of an exclusively public and free Health System and the consequences on the life and health of the people from Health-commodity, which every government takes to promote even more decisively, are also reflected in EL.STAT’s research. “for the health of the population aged 16 and over”. Over time, all governments have devalued the public Health System, so that like a “ripe fruit” the private Health sector of business groups can “bloom” with the aim of pure, quick profit”, according to Dimitris Vrysalis, who emphasizes that “this is how they seek that the NHS be discredited and come as a “ripe fruit” that it does not work, it does not work and through the drying up of recruitments and reduced salaries, the closure of some Health structures. Not of the system, which will be there, there will be a “lamp” for the sick, but everything that is “fillet” and can bring money will “bloom” twice, discrediting the functions of the public Health System”.

Referring to Crete, Dimitris Vrysalis complains: “We also see on our island with the thousands of waiting lists in the surgeries, with the inability to book an appointment at the outpatient clinics, with the cutting of examinations even for cancer patients, as happened in a public hospital in Athens . The research proves that it is in the interest of our people to fight for an exclusively public, free, upgraded Health System at all levels with permanent staff of all categories fully financed by the state budget”, as the union concludes