Etudes par pays volume 2, PDF, 346 p., 1,4 Mo - Femise

11873_2002 Study D2: Poverty, Informal Sector, Health and Labour
2. HEALTH
2.1. Definitions, Facts and Figures
The health care services are provided in Greece by a mixed public-private
system consisting of the National Health System (NHS), established in
1983, the health units of certain Social Insurance Funds - the largest of
which is IKA, covering just about half of the population – the military
hospitals and a private network of health care facilities, which include
physicians with specialties, clinics, diagnostic centers and laboratories. Part
of the NHS are the Health Centers, located all over the country, particularly
for servicing the countryside, providing primary health care and prevention.
In the NHS that includes the public hospitals and the primary health care
centers, all services are provided free of charge to everyone.
In 2002, the health care capacity of the country consisted of 59,518 hospital
beds, of which 36,621 (67.7 per cent) belonged to the NHS and 15,397 (25.9
per cent), contained in 234 hospitals, to the private sector. Primary health
care is serviced by about 25,000 private practices and laboratories, and 250
diagnostic centers. Half of these centers are situated in Athens and are
equipped with high quality expensive medical technology. They are
financed by signing contracts with the social insurance Funds, on a case by
case basis. Most of the private hospitals are general and maternity units and
are financed, as the diagnostic centres, by the social insurance funds through
contracted arrangements and also by the patients themselves. Greece, with
5.44 hospital beds per 1000 inhabitants holds a low place among the EU
countries. It has however the lowest occupancy rate (70.4 per cent), stable
over the last decade.
Concerning the medical and nursing staff of health care delivery in Greece,
a study by the National School of Public Health in Athens shows the
existence of a ‘disequilibrium’ between physicians with specialties and
general physicians and family doctors. According to this study, Greece has
41.5 physicians per 10,000 inhabitants, but only one general practitioner.
General practitioners make up 1.8 per cent of the total number of physicians
in the country. This compares very badly with, for instance, Great Britain
where 46 per cent of all physicians are general practitioners. Analogous,
unfavorable for Greece, is the comparison with other countries, such
Austria, Portugal and Italy, with correspondingly 50, 31 and 34 per cent of
FONDAZIONE CENSIS
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