No room for psychiatric hospitals in reformed Greece

A revision of the ‘Špidla Agreement’ on psychiatric reform and de-institutionalization that was signed in Brussels on May 28th between Greek former Health Minister Andreas Lykourentzos and EU commissioner László Andor, provides for the aforementioned shutdown, with no efforts so far for the imminent  gap to be filled.

“The shutdown’s rigid time frame puts both the psychiatric health reform as a whole and thousands of mental patients’ lives in peril, as the latter risk being left on the streets”, workers at the Thessaloniki Psychiatric hospital told reporters at a news conference.

Thanasis Vaxevanis, a doctor in charge of coordinating the hospital’s acute cases division,  said that while clinical depression affected 3.3 per cent of the Greek population in 2008, the corresponding percentage for 2009 was 6.8, reaching 8.2 in 2011 and skyrocketing to 13.5 in 2013.
Moreover, the national suicide index, calculated by the number of cases per 100,000 people, jumped from 2.5 in 2000 to 3.5 in 2009, and now has leaped to 5.

“Major depression has been documented for fifty per cent of those with a monthly income under 400 euros, while unemployment is directly correlated with the suicide rate”, Mr. Vaxevanis added.

With the excuse of de-institutionalization, the number of public psychiatric hospitals has decreased, he said. But private hospitals are opening, he noted.
The Thessaloniki Psychiatric hospital serves patients from the northern provinces of Western and Eastern Macedonia, as well as those from Thessaly, in central Greece.

Panagiotis Georgakas, head of the hospital’s detoxification facilities, said that according to data from the National Center of Documentation and Information on Narcotics, the number of first time users of injected substances has increased. Moreover, Mr. Georgakas said that substance abusers are resorting to crime more often and more easily jumping from substance to substance, an added medical hazard.  

Shisha, a cheap, higly toxic, injectable narcotic made from car battery fluid, has become more widespread than heroin on the streets of Athens, Mr. Georgakas stressed. Public prevention centers are being pared down and even closed, while a new law grants private companies the right to open and operate such centers without any oversight, he said.