Gov't To Keep Cash-Strapped Onassio Centre Afloat

The cash-strapped Onassio Heart-Surgery Centre was saved from imminent collapse this week when the government stepped in and decided to hand over the centre's state funding for 2013, amounting to 7.0 million Euros, immediately and up front. The decision was made following a meeting held at the Onassio Centre between Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis and the hospital's board, including board chairman Dr. Ioannis Lekakis, to brief the minister on the centre's pressing financial problems.

Prior to the meeting, doctors and Onassio staff fearing the centre's financial collapse and further wage cuts had held a three-hour work stoppage.

Georgiadis then held a meeting with Alternate Finance Minister Christos Staikouras, who agreed to the immediate release of seven million euros in state funding earmarked for the Onassio, whose state funding had been slashed by half since 2012, when it was 14 million Euros.

The government also agreed to settle outstanding debts of about 38 million Euros owed to the Onassio by social insurance funds, dating back to the years before the foundation of the unified health services provider EOPYY and up to the end of 2011.

Also present at the meeting with Staikouras was Deputy Health Minister Zeta Makri, who managed to secure 500,000 euros as the second installment of a total 1.5 million euro to be spent on vaccinating the children of those lacking health insurance.

In other related news, state hospital, welfare and ambulance service workers announced planned 24-hour strikes on July 16 and July 24, during which their services will operate with a skeleton staff. The strikes are held in retaliation to an announcement that 2,500 health-sector employees of all types will be suspended on reduced pay as part of a public-sector 'mobility' scheme, until they are either transferred or laid off.

The strikes were announced by the Panhellenic Federation of State Hospital Employees (POEDHN), which said it was "infuriating" that national health service staff should be suspended when hospitals suffered chronic staff shortages and had been among the first to receive 470 workers in the first wave of public-sector transfers. The union spoke of a "policy to degrade and dismantle the national health system that is now in full swing".

The union said that its members will participate in Monday's protest rally with the local authority workers' union federation POE-OTA and joint a 24-hour strike announced by the civil servants union federation ADEDY and the General Confederation of Employees of Greece (GSEE) next Tuesday. If the finance ministry omnibus bill is not passed before Wednesday, there may be another 24-hour strike on Wednesday as well.

The strike on July 24 will be combined with a protest rally outside the health ministry at 11:30 a.m.

(Combined Reports)