Author Topic: Healthcare dying out  (Read 7989 times)

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Offline Maik

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Healthcare dying out
« on: Friday, 21 February, 2014 @ 13:20:42 »
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Tough austerity measures in Greece leave nearly a million people with no access to healthcare, leading to soaring infant mortality, HIV infection and suicide

Austerity measures imposed by the Greek government since the economic crisis have inflicted “shocking” harm on the health of the population, leaving nearly a million people without access to healthcare, experts have said.

In a damning report on the impact of spending cuts on the Greek health system, academics found evidence of rising infant mortality rates, soaring levels of HIV infection among drug users, the return of malaria, and a spike in the suicide count.

Greece’s public hospital budget was cut by 25 per cent between 2009 and 2011 and public spending on pharmaceuticals has more than halved, leading to some medicine  becoming unobtainable, experts from Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) said.

Rising unemployment in a country where health insurance is linked to work status has led to an estimated 800,000 people lacking either state welfare or access to health services and in some areas international humanitarian organisations such as Médecins du Monde have stepped in to provide healthcare and medicines to vulnerable people.

The report, which is published today in the medical journal The Lancet, accuses the Greek government and the international community – which demanded swingeing cuts as a condition of bailing out the Greek economy during the debt crisis between 2010 and 2012 – of being “in denial” about the scale of hardship inflicted on the Greek people.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/tough-austerity-measures-in-greece-leave-nearly-a-million-people-with-no-access-to-healthcare-leading-to-soaring-infant-mortality-hiv-infection-and-suicide-9142274.html

Offline TonyKath

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Re: Healthcare dying out
« Reply #1 on: Friday, 21 February, 2014 @ 14:01:57 »
Absolutely dire.  I mean just think of all those poor pharma multi-nationals with their sales figures going down.   :bat:

Tony

Offline Maik

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Re: Healthcare dying out
« Reply #2 on: Saturday, 22 February, 2014 @ 14:53:42 »
Longer article in the Washington Post: Greece’s prescription for a health-care crisis