The conference of the newspaper “Proto Thema” and the medical site ygeiamou.gr, on “The Health System in COVID-19 and in the post-COVID-19 era” was attended by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in the first section of the conference on “Developing the health system in the post-covid-19 era”, with Mrs. Anastasia Kotanidou, Professor of Intensive Care at the University of Athens and coordinator the director of the Proto Thema, Babis Koutras.

The Prime Minister described the conference as a first-class opportunity to assess the performance of the health system and to proceed with reform, that will be the basis for the new health system.

“The pandemic hit an NHS that was coming out of the 10-year crisis with significant weaknesses in infrastructure and human resources”, said the Prime Minister.

He added: “Our doctors have been seeing for years that the strength of the system was not enough. We have strengthened the system with temporary staff, part of which will be made permanent. We had the opportunity to make a digital leap. The speed of vaccinations shows that the state has the ability to handle complex mechanisms”.

More specifically regarding the course of the vaccinations, the Prime Minister stated that “Operation Eleftheria (Freedom)” was warmly embraced by both the citizens and those who staff it.

“We have proved that as a state we can plan and carry out this planning. We have taken steps to cooperate with the private sector in difficult conditions. It is very interesting for the next day and it should be evaluated how the state and the private sector worked together. The health system must find new ways of cooperating with the private sector, it is not obligatory to be only state-owned, but to be with quality”, the Prime Minister underlined and added:” Let us be honest. In the Covid crisis, the problems of the NHS also emerged and we have the obligation not to hide them”.

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“The problems of primary care are the biggest bet of the next day and the primary care system needs to be re-built. We had the biggest problems in regional hospitals”, the Prime Minister acknowledged and stressed:” We need a new map in care, to know the possibilities of each hospital. It is inconceivable to have two hospitals a short distance away and it as turns out both are problematic. It is important to put aside local expediencies and see the new financial tools, what the development fund gives us, but also to make the leap to digital health system”, Mr. Mitsotakis continued and added:” The digital patient file is a non-negotiable priority. We already have the infrastructure on the occasion of the pandemic, I believe we will soon be able to begin”.

The Prime Minister stressed the importance of the NHS and pointed out that we must “invest in public health and prevention and to ensure the best possible public health”.