In 2011, Giorgos Vichas, a cardiologist, opened a community clinic with six colleagues in Ellinikon, a southern suburb of Athens, to meet the needs of thousands of long-term unemployed people who, lacking health insurance, were no longer admitted free of charge to public hospitals. In 2015, when the left-wing Syriza government passed legislation allowing uninsured people back into public hospitals, the Ellinikon clinic became less essential. But public facilities quickly ran into trouble. "For the long-term unemployed, that reform was progress. But the problem is that the funding provided by the government to cover the care for these additional patients is not enough. As a result, hospitals are in debt and lack everything...," the cardiologist pointed out.

So much so that, even after 2015, regular patients continued to visit the Ellinikon clinic because "they still felt stigmatized at public hospitals, they still didn't have access to certain medications that were too expensive, and waiting times for care were still long," Vichas recalled. But the community clinic did not last. It had to close in March 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 crisis, to make way for a luxury development with skyscrapers, residences, a shopping center, hotels and even a casino.

You have 65.78% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.