A meeting on the reform goals for the next three years regarding the national healthcare system was held on Tuesday morning at the Maximos Mansion, led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

During the meeting, they discussed the implementation of the program for the free performance of 37,500 afternoon surgeries, funded by the Recovery and Resilience Fund. The focus will be on citizens who have been on the waiting list for the longest, as part of the broader strategy to systematically reduce pending surgeries in public hospitals, which will now be monitored through the unified digital surgery list.

The progress of upgrading emergency departments and other facilities in the National Health System (ESY) was also reviewed, alongside best practices for patient intake and distribution, aimed at improving and speeding up service for citizens.

Additionally, the discussion covered the further strengthening of ESY with personnel, the timeline for digitizing more healthcare services to facilitate better communication between patients and doctors, and a review of the performance of EKAV (the National Emergency Aid Center) and air ambulance services during the summer months.

At the end of the meeting, the prime minister made the following statement:

“We concluded our regular meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Health to outline our priorities for the coming months.

I want to highlight the important announcement regarding the separate taxation of doctors’ on-call shifts in ESY, which will significantly boost their income once the measure is implemented. This was a long-standing request from ESY doctors.

Our priorities for the coming months focus on the swift implementation of the landmark program of free afternoon surgeries. We are awaiting final approval from the European Commission so that this program can begin immediately. It will benefit over 30,000 of our fellow citizens, and our goal is to significantly reduce surgery waiting lists through this program, starting with the longest-pending cases and moving to the newer ones.

We also addressed, once again, the issue of managing cases in the emergency departments of hospitals. In the coming period, there will be specific announcements in this direction.

We know that emergency departments are often a source of frustration and, at times, give an unfair impression of the overall image of the National Health System. I won’t dwell on the renovation of the Emergency Departments, which is already in progress thanks to the Recovery Fund. There will also be additional initiatives to increase staffing, especially for paramedics, and possibly proposals for better management of on-call duties in Attica.

Our goal is always for our fellow citizens to wait less in emergency departments, with less hassle, more dignity, and ultimately better service. I believe that very soon we will be able to proceed with specific immediate intervention announcements in this critical area of the ESY’s operation.”

The meeting was attended by Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis, Ministers of State Makis Voridis and Akis Skertsos, Deputy Minister of Health Eirini Agapidaki, Deputy Ministers Dimitris Vartzopoulos and Marios Themistocleous, and Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister Thanasis Kontogeorgis.