Navy Officers Quit Before Deployed to Red Sea
Dear Member,
This is our weekly round-up from Greece.
A doctor goes for her shift and will leave the hospital walking with a stick. She suffered a stroke, which she attributes to overworking due to understaffing. Understaffing seems to be also behind an elderly hospital patient left lying on the floor until his visiting grandson discovered him. Plus, a new report suggests the two biggest cancer hospitals in the country are collapsing.
The Greek Mafia strikes again by killing one of their own with some 80+ bullets at a fuel station on a central street in Athens. Perhaps it’s time for you to visit the city and geta a taste of the Far West in the (European?) Near East.
18 Greek Navy officers resigned to avoid being sent to the Red Sea. It was not about politics. It was about money: they were called to risk their lives for 85 euros net per day.
An MD had a stroke due to burn-out. She is not the exception
An anesthesiologist in a public hospital in Thessaloniki suffered a stroke after a 16-hour- long shift without a break (Opens in a new window).
“At the end of my shift, I felt a strong malaise; my face went numb. I laid down in the recovery area where we have the stretchers. My colleagues rushed to me and found that it was a stroke,”
the 44-year-old anesthesiologist told state broadcaster ERT from the hospital, attributing the stroke she suffered to burnout due to non-stop working. The doctor was in the surgery room for 16 hours, and upon finishing her shift, she began to feel the first symptoms.
The doctor underwent thrombolysis to break blood clots and is in good health, although her leg “is still not very well,” as she said. “That’s what worries me. I was told that it would get better. I came to do a shift and I am leaving with a cane,” she stressed.
She added that she is not the only one who has suffered the consequences of this exhausting work; other colleagues have also.
“I am not the sole such incident. In October, a colleague almost lost her eye. Another colleague, after multiple hours on duty, collapsed from exhaustion and broke her arm. This is more than a burn-out. Who can say after 12-13 hours of work that they have a clear mind?... A colleague left the hospital, and she fell asleep in the car…”
she said in another interview (Opens in a new window) with Parallaxi magazine.
The doctor clearly stated she is considering taking legal action against the hospital and everyone responsible.
Speaking to ANT1 TV, Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis apologized (Opens in a new window) to the doctor “on behalf of the state.” He claimed, “Thessaloniki is the city with the greatest shortage of anesthesiologists in Greece” and that the state is constantly trying to employ some.
However, we have covered extensively in this newsletter how the hospitals have been brought to this state of collapse, starting from 2010-2011 with austerity budget cuts, the final blow being the pandemic. The ND government is pursuing a policy towards the privatization of health. There has been no indication whatsoever of an effort to put the NHS back on its feet again.
It indicates that the country's two biggest cancer hospitals, Aghios Savvas and Metaxa, are collapsing. “We lack more than ⅓ of the necessary personnel. So 100 beds are not operating,” said (Opens in a new window) Aghios Savvas employees president Katerina Patrikiou in an interview with the Press Project. She added that four doctors would be retiring soon, and only one would be hired.
According to the report, one-third of the personnel are hired with short-term contracts. This means that many come and go, creating gaps in between.
Is it all about reducing the budget?
“While we have cooks and personnel [in the hospital kitchen], they run bid so that food would come from catering companies, a cost of some 6 million euros for three years, while operating the kitchen in the hospital is far cheaper. Not to mention the quality of the food, who and how will cook it, where it will be kept, how it is going to be transferred,” Mrs Patrikiou added.
Ten nurses recently quit. “There are more than 145 vacancies. Surgeries also operate on the verge. Four out of six surgical beds operate.”
In another hospital, Aghios Pavlos in Thessaloniki, an 82-year-old patient was found on Friday bleeding on the floor (Opens in a new window). It could not be verified how long he had been there in a helpless state until his grandson found him on the spot during visiting hours—a shocking indicative incident of lack of personnel.
How did the government respond to all this?
Deputy Health Minister Themistokleous said they will allow doctors also to run a private practice while permanently employed with the NHS.
Brilliant? They could then work even more hours!
The PM had announced 10,000 open-contract hirings in the NHS, of which 6,500 are expected to happen within 2024. We won’t believe it if we don’t see it happening.
The anaesthesiologist who had a stroke highlighted (Opens in a new window) another aspect of the problem:
“Who in his right mind would come to cover one out of the four vacancies announced when they know it’s 14 anesthesiologists needed” and “the on-duty days are paid 3.5 euros [per hour]”?
The Greek Mafia strikes again
He was executed with 80 bullets. A 44-year-old prominent member of the Greek Mafia was executed (Opens in a new window) with over 80 bullets outside a fuel station in the Neos Kosmos district of Athens in the early hours of Sunday.
It was a few minutes before 2.00 in the morning as the victim, Vangelis Zambounis, was getting into his armored car. He came under an unprecedented “storm” of fire and fell dead next to his car. The victim was allegedly carrying a gun. He had a lengthy criminal record and appears to have been known to the police for the last 20 years. However, there was never enough evidence to bring him to justice.
Videos from CCTV cameras are shocking.
Please note that the attack occurred in a very central spot, and it was due to pure luck that no people were around.
State broadcaster ERT reported that this was the 16th murder among members of the Greek Mafia in the last seven years.
It is interesting what journalist Babis Polychroniadis, who has reported extensively on the Greek Mafia, wrote on Facebook (Opens in a new window) on the occasion of Zambounis murder:
“It’s been almost eight months since Basilis Roubetis' murder (who was using Alafouzos’s [i.e., SKAI TV owner and Panathinaikos FC head] armored car, while his close relations to Olympiacos FC were known for years) Vangelis Zambounis was murdered yesterday night outside the fuel station owned by one of his relatives. He and other members of his family-owned fuel stations for a specific company. In 2018, another attack had been staged against him (he had then been injured) close to the offices of this specific company in Piraeus (...) Don’t forget that a few days before Roubetis’s murder (...) a stolen vehicle carrying heavy weaponry was found in… Neos Kosmos.”
He concludes:
“Within the next hours, you will read lengthy analyses about Zabounis’s involvement in night staff with murder contracts, the rivalry with Roubetis’s group, etc. What should be understood is that it serves the mainstream-state narrative to present these people as ‘criminals killing each other.’ They work for some businessmen who buy immunity from high-ranking Greek police officers and politicians. They all know and keep silent because ‘it’s about too much money,’ as somebody very knowledgeable told me last year. ”
Greek police on Thursday announced (Opens in a new window) that it had identified seven people suspected of involvement in the murders of Yiannis Skaftouros in 2022 and Vassilis Roubetis in 2023 – both leading members of the Greek mafia.
Athens increasingly gives the impression of a lawless city where people who carry guns shoot even in broad daylight (as it became apparent with Karaivaz’s murder) or in busy streets and residential neighborhoods while the police are nowhere to stop them.
Where is the police?
Last time we checked, on Thursday, they attacked students (Opens in a new window) in the Athens Polytechnical School who were squatting in the building on a day of protest against governmental plans to privatize Higher Education in the country. The police even entered a school on the same day (Opens in a new window) -pupils were squatting for the same reason- following a prosecutor’s order. Charges were filed against six pupils for ‘obstructing an institution's operation.’
It’s easier to deal with unarmed demonstrators and children than with armed Mafia people and the corruption running to the very bone of the system.
Greek navy officers resign en masse to avoid being sent to the Red Sea.
Not one or two, but 18 Greek navy officers resigned to avoid being sent to the Red Sea.
Defense minister Dendias had announced that, following a PM's decision (Opens in a new window), Greece would send a frigate to the Red Sea to aid the multinational operation ‘Prosperity Guardian’, led by the US. The operation aims to protect cargo ships from Houthi (Yemeni) attacks, resulting in many shipping companies suspending their routes in the region.
Greece’s frigate of choice for the mission was ‘Hydra,’ with a 200-member crew.
While the General Staff was still looking to recruit 30 more people for the crew, it was reported on Friday that 18 officers resigned to avoid being sent to the Red Sea and effectively ‘freezing’ plans for Hydra’s involvement to ‘Prosperity Guardian.’
If you thought these were resignations due to politics, this is not true. The mission would last six months. “When it became known how much the daily compensation would be, in combination with the duration of the operation, 18 frigate crew members quit,” Militaire.gr (Opens in a new window) reported (Opens in a new window). The daily compensation would be 86 euros net.
Why should they risk their lives to be paid what amounts to a good restaurant meal for two with good wine? Not that we understand risking one’s own life if it’s not for defending something you believe in.
People quitting the Greek Navy, however, are not really news. According to the Panhellenic Military Officers Association, some 134 Greek Navy officers had quit in 2023 as of last November. As for this last decade, resignations in the Navy are “increasing worryingly” it was reported (Opens in a new window).
Militaire.gr (Opens in a new window) also published in June a text claiming (Opens in a new window) that the state “has abandoned to a great degree the Armed Forces due to economic crises, meaning lack of contemporary means, contemporary equipment… lack of personnel…”
Read
Greece found to have violated Syrian refugee’s right to life by firing on vessel: (Opens in a new window)European court of human rights orders Athens to pay €80,000 to family of Belal Tello, who died after 2014 incident
Femicide: Woman succumbs to her injuries after husband set her on fire (Opens in a new window)
Bookstore of Homeless in Athens robbed: Over 8,000 books disappeared (Opens in a new window)
As Development Alters Greek Islands’ Nature and Culture, Locals Push Back: (Opens in a new window)As a proliferation of pools threatens some water supplies and housing costs skyrocket, people of the Cycladic islands say the Aegean islands’ character is being lost to real-estate homogenization.
Greeks outraged over price of baby formula, the most expensive in Europe (Opens in a new window)
Key factors in cost-of-living crisis not kept in check (Opens in a new window)
‘Ten percent of Greeks are not adequately fed’ (Opens in a new window)
Convicted neo-Nazi quits Athens Municipal Council (Opens in a new window)
Stray cats killer sentenced to 8 years without suspension (Opens in a new window)
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things Dominated Greek Box Office (Opens in a new window)
Green Greece: Tilos, the Med’s First ‘Energy Autonomous’ Island (Opens in a new window)
Hunting down coastal illegalities (Opens in a new window)
Athens’ new and underwhelming facades (Opens in a new window)
That’s all for this week; please forward this email to anyone you think might find it interesting and ask them to join our international community! (Opens in a new window)
The AL team
