The issue of participation by private doctorsin on-call duty at NHS hospitals has been resolved in all regions except Kos, the health minister said on Friday morning, Adonis Georgiadis, who, given the solution to the problem, pledged not to issue the on electronic prescribing for private doctors who will not back down.

At the same time, he described as an extreme trade union practice the decision of the Panhellenic Medical Association for a two-day abstention from electronic prescribing, expressing the assessment that most doctors will not follow it.

“It is not a threat directly proportional. Is it directly analogous to say that if 9 pathologists go to Kos you will cut off electronic prescribing throughout Greece? The Ministry of Health has never said that electronic prescribing will be cut throughout Greece, it’s a union reaction of the PIS this is a union reaction. I appeal to doctors not to follow this urge, because if it succeeds it will result in a terrible suffering of patients,” the health minister told Action 24.

He said “the Ministry of Health initiative has been vindicated because we have started an effort to solve a long-standing issue of on-call gaps. All the gaps were filled without implementing the controversial provision. What we wanted to achieve for the NHS and for patients, we have achieved. I thank those doctors who rushed to respond to the cry of anguish of the Ministry of Health.”/

“But we have two exceptions: One on the field which is Kos but I am optimistic that we will make progress and the second is the very tough one of the PIS unionists.”

As Georgiades explained, “the article cannot be withdrawn because it is the last of a comprehensive policy. I pledge that I will not issue the EIS because the problem has been solved.”