2024-03-09 09:03:24
Seven University Health Centers in the territory, including one in Ioannina, will be operational by the end of 2024, with the Ministry of Health proceeding with the second phase of Primary Health Care reform.
As announced by the Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis and Deputy Minister Irini Agapidakis, the university Health Centers will be connected to the Medical Schools (EKPA, AUTH, Larissa, Ioannina, Alexandroupolis and Heraklion), will provide quality health services and will constitute “centers”. training of doctors.
Each university Center will have four faculty members (five for Athens and Thessaloniki) appropriately trained to provide Primary Health Care. At least 30 professors of Medicine will join the staff of the new university Health Centers.
These health centers will also operate telemedicine for remote examinations. 312 clinics for chronic diseases will also be developed.
In addition to the university Health Centers, the strengthening of the institution of the personal doctor was announced, giving incentives for the participation of general practitioners and pathologists, but also expanding the pool of private doctors that the citizen will pay for.
The specialties that will frame the institution of the personal doctor are pathologists, paediatricians and psychologists. The pool for the personal doctor is those who serve in the public sector PHY (2,015), those who have declared participation in the institution from the private sector (1,272) and The reform of the institution of the rural doctor is the next channel. That is, the graduates will serve in the Regional Clinics as personal doctors. A 4th pool of private doctors is being created, which citizens can choose but will pay out of pocket. Today, there are 1,261 doctors working in rural clinics and within the next few months an additional 1,370 positions will be opened.
As Mrs. Agapidaki said, the news that is coming, is that doctor positions will be opened per municipality, so that the citizen can find a doctor near his residence. In addition, incentives will be given to the doctor so that registered citizens take advantage of the screening programs.
The gaps today to cover the population amount to 1,370, with 60% concerning Attica. To date, 5 million citizens have registered, i.e. 56% of the population.
As he said, we will redistribute the system, so that citizens can choose a doctor near their residence.
Incentives for GPs and GPs
Georgiadis and Agapidakis gave special emphasis to the incentives that will be given for the selection by young people of the specialty of General Medicine and Pathology.
As the Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, said, we are moving to the next step in the PFI reform. “For many years, Greece has been trying to build a long-term care system. We are one of the last countries that have not yet managed to build a functioning PPH system”.
The young doctors who will choose the specializations of Pathology or General Medicine will receive an annual compensation of 30,000 euros and will have to stay an additional five years in the institution.
“Only 6% of our doctors are general practitioners and internists. It is very difficult to implement this reform if we do not have these two specialties,” the health minister said and continued: “Those who choose these specialties which are 5 years will have to remain as personal doctors for 5 years where they will receive a bonus of 30,000 euro”.
Regarding the evaluation indicators, they said that they will concern all four categories of registered doctors: public, private, in-service and privately compensated doctors, e.g. per municipality.
Their role will be prevention (advice on lifestyle changes, proper nutrition, exercise, smoking cessation, etc.) but also health promotion (preventive examinations, e.g. mammography, HPV DNA test, prostate examination, etc.) . The doctor will enter all these details in the patient’s digital medical file.