Patras (Greece) (AFP)
At the hospital in Patras, where several contaminated pilgrims have been admitted on their return from Israel, the medical staff are overwhelmed by the sudden influx of patients struck by an "almost uncontrollable epidemic", for lack of means in a hospital system Greek at bay.
In the northeast of the Peloponnese, the University Hospital of Patras, one of the main establishments in Greece mobilized against the coronavirus, treated the first patient who died of the pandemic in the country: a 66-year-old pensioner who had surrendered in the Holy Land with a group of pilgrims at the end of February.
"It was a shocking event for us: the hospital in Patras had the first death in Greece," Haralambos Gogos, an infectious disease specialist at the establishment, told AFP.
About fifty pilgrims of the group also fell ill, they had all traveled several days in the same bus in Egypt and in Israel. It is to date the most important group contamination that Greece has known. They were mostly from the Peloponnese (southwest).
"We were taken by surprise because the epidemic was almost out of control," said Dr. Gogos. "We are encountering the problems of the main European countries like Spain, Italy, France," he says.
As everywhere, there is a shortage of masks, glasses and protective suits, said Stelios Tsohatzis, vice-president of the association of hospital doctors of Achaia, the region where Patras is located.
As a result, a quarter of practitioners in the pathology unit at Patras hospital have tested positive for coronavirus and are in quarantine, he reported.
As elsewhere, the hospital lacks screening tests. Doctors in Patras had to insist on testing the first patient to return from Israel, said Stelios Tsohatzis, vice-president of the Association of Hospital Doctors of Achaea.
"At that time, the official instructions from the public health agency were to (especially) test travelers from China, Iran and South Korea upon arrival at the hospital," he said.
But in Greece, the coronavirus pandemic is hitting a health system already weakened by a decade of crisis.
During the years 2010-2018, the severe cuts in health spending, and the flight abroad of thousands of doctors, had a heavy impact on the public hospital sector.
In Patras, 55 doctors and 175 medical personnel were missing before the epidemic, underlined Dimitris Ziazias, head of the council of doctors of the Achaia region.
- April will be "critical" -
And "April will be even more difficult, but hopefully soon we will see a decline in the epidemic," said Dr. Gogos.
For Nikos Hardalias, Deputy Minister of Civil Protection, "April is particularly critical (...) the situation is still fluid and nothing is resolved".
To date, Greece deplores 50 deaths and 1,415 cases of contamination by coronavirus on a population of 11 million inhabitants.
To cope with the pandemic and fill gaps in the health system, the Greek government has announced the hiring of 4,200 doctors and nurses in recent days, 2,000 of which are already deployed in hospitals across the country.
Last week, he called for volunteers, medical students and retirees.
The number of intensive care beds also increased 54% in two months to 870, according to government spokesman Stelios Petsas. And if necessary, private clinics will be requisitioned.
- "Unprecedented" challenge -
It was about time, said Stelios Tsohatzis, who said that healthcare workers face an "unprecedented" challenge. "The health system as it was before could not have responded to (a crisis) like this," he added.
But Greece must also count on good will.
In partnership with the Ministry of Health, Kostis Koutrestos, 3D printer, and Simos Kokkinos, unemployed entrepreneur, made 500 protective visors, thanks to a network of 400 volunteers across Greece. And they have an order for 7,000 visors funded by private partners, according to Mr. Kokkinos.
The Onassis foundation bought 13.5 million masks for the Greek healthcare system, at a cost of 7.75 million euros.
And the Greek Prime Minister publicly thanked a clothing trader in Grevena (north) for donating 600 cloth masks to a local hospital.
© 2020 AFP