A dispatch from the state news agency said that the union of EOPYY doctors, who have been striking in protest at cuts and dismissals in Greece's health care system, decided to extend their action until next Tuesday, December 3rd prompting Georgiadis to react.
“I am not prepared to keep in the public sector people who are not necessary,” Georgiadis told Skai on Thursday. “I would then have to cut from pensions, which I consider immoral,” he said.
“No one can blackmail the state,” said Georgiadis adding that the Health Ministry has already hammered out a plan B “which doctors will not like.” He did not provide more details.
A day earlier the draft legislation to cut the prices off of dozens of state-subsidized medicines was approved by the Greek Parliament by a vote of 164-72 with 10 lawmakers not wanting to take a stand and voting present instead.
SYRIZA called on the government to shelve the bill, however it came under quite a bit of criticism because it began begin accused of wanting to protect the profits of large pharmaceutical companies who provide apparently are one of their biggest supporters.
Incredibly, SYRIZA, which wants to come across as a socialist party, attempted to block these reductions forgetting how much more expensive medicines are in Greece as opposed to other states in the EU. In fact the party was in a fury, arguing that if citizens were offered generic drugs then this would directly affect the Greek pharmaceutical sector and slash at least 4,000 jobs. We agree, no one should lose their jobs, however, a population of well over 11 million people cannot continue fattening the wallets of several Greek pharmaceutical companies and suffer from their constant manipulation and control. (Besides, we all know how cartels work, and trust us here at HellasFrappe, these companies enjoyed big bucks for far too long.)
Never once did SYRIZA think about defending the pockets of common Greek citizens who have suffered hard all these years from a long recession, pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions. Never once did they think about all the strikes held by pharmacists, who were forced to pay for these medicines from their savings at higher prices because doctors aligned with drug companies were abusing the writing of prescriptions of brand names over generic drugs (which are less expensive) for their own personal gain.
Instead SYRIZA opposed the cuts to slash the price of only 100 “off patent” drugs and some generic medicines. The party said that the new law will fail to decrease the prices of more expensive drugs and would damage Greek pharmaceutical companies, and only benefit multinational firms.
In fact SYRIZA called for the amendment to be voted on in five separate sections but Parliament accused the Leftist party of trying to divert attention from voting against benefits for the people.
“You are trying to muddy the waters with procedural matters to cover up the ‘no’ to the reduction of medicine prices,” said New Democracy MP Sofia Voultepsi.
“You are ganging up on SYRIZA because we are an anti systemic opposition party,” responded Leftist MP Panayiotis Lafazanis, who even went as far as saying that the voting procedure was “illegal.”SYRIZA's position fired up Georgiadis who in return accused the opposition party of being on the payrole of Greek drug companies and pointed to a series of advertisements from Greek drug companies to one of SYRIZA's affiliated radio stations (Sto Kokkino).
SYRIZA's stance on the whole issue should raise quite a bit of concern. National Organization for Medicines (EOF) President Dimitris Lintzeris rubbished claims that generic drugs were unsafe noting that no one has the right to create doubts in Greek people’s minds about the quality of medicines. He apparently told Kathimerini that routine checks are carried out at many levels: at factories, at warehouses, on new products, in Greece and abroad and the results are always the same, the medicines are safe and are of top quality.
(Combined Reports)
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