Greece has been seriously affected by the economic crisis. In 2011 there were reports of 40% reduction to public hospital budgets. Occasional shortages of medical supplies have been reported in mass media. We attempted to pivotally investigate the frequency of medical supplies shortages in two Greek hospital units of the National Health System and to also assess their possible impact on burnout risk of health care workers. We conducted a cross-sectional study (n=303) of health care workers in two Greek hospitals who were present at the workplace during a casually selected working day (morning shift work). The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was used as the measure of burnout. An additional questionnaire was used about demographics, and working conditions (duration of employment, cumulative night shifts, type of hospital including medical supplies shortages and their impact on quality of healthcare. The prevalence of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and low personal accomplishment was 44.5%, 43.2% and 51.5%, respectively. Medical supply shortages were significantly associated with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. This finding provides preliminary evidence that austerity has affected health care in Greece. Moreover, the medical supply shortages in Greek hospitals may reflect the unfolding humanitarian crisis of the country.
BackgroundOver the past years, Greece has undergone several endeavors aimed at modernizing and improving national health care services with a focus on PHC. However, the extent to which integrated primary health care has been achieved is still questioned.PurposeThis paper explores the extent to which integrated primary health care (PHC) is an issue in the current agenda of policy makers in Greece, reporting constraints and opportunities and highlighting the need for a policy perspective in developing integrated PHC in this Southern European country.MethodsA systematic review in PubMed/Medline and SCOPUS, along with a hand search in selected Greek biomedical journals was undertaken to identify key papers, reports, editorials or opinion letters relevant to integrated health care.ResultsOur systematic review identified 198 papers and 161 out of them were derived from electronic search. Fifty-three papers in total served the scope of this review and are shortly reported. A key finding is that the long-standing dominance of medical perspectives in Greek health policy has been paving the way towards vertical integration, pushing aside any discussions about horizontal or comprehensive integration of care.ConclusionEstablishment of integrated PHC in Greece is still at its infancy, requiring major restructuring of the current national health system, as well as organizational culture changes. Moving towards a new policy-based model would bring this missing issue on the discussion table, facilitating further development.
Background: In Greece where primary health care services are not fully developed, patients with simple or minor conditions have to attend to hospitals to be treated. We analysed the data of patients with cutaneous disorders attending the tertiary referral hospital on the Island of Crete, with the aim to identify the most common conditions that patients complain of, in order to define the areas where the education of General Practitioners in Dermatology must focus.
Compared with placebo the essential-oil extract of three Cretan aromatic plants provided no detectable statistically significant benefit or harm in the patients with upper respiratory illness, although descriptive differences were identified in favorable direction mainly in the virus-positive population.
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