Reflecting on the up-to-date global experience of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is of crucial importance in order to draw conclusions needed for the design of policies aiming the ...prevention of new epidemics and the effective protection, preparedness and response of any new emerging. Ongoing environmental destruction, excess mortality by COVID-19 and non-COVID diseases reflecting the dismantlement and commodification of both public health services and healthcare services, deep economic crisis, increasing and deepening social inequalities are the main characteristics raised by the pandemic. The causes of the causes of all these are the dominant rules of the capitalistic system, driven mainly by the unlimited greed for profit on the expenses of the majority of the society. The effectiveness of any proposed correction of this system is discussed and the need for another society responding to the needs of the population is argued.
The aim of this study was to estimate the short term consequences of job insecurity associated with a newly introduced mobility framework in Greece. In specific, the study examined the impact of job ...insecurity on anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic and musculoskeletal symptoms, two months after the announcement of the mobility framework. In addition the study also examined the “spill over” effects of job insecurity on employees not directly affected by the mobility framework. Personal interviews using a structured questionnaire were conducted for 36 university administrative employees awaiting repositioning, 36 coworkers not at risk, and 28 administrative employees of a local hospital not at risk. Compared to both control groups the employees in the anticipation phase of labor mobility had significantly worse scores for perceived stress, anxiety, depression, positive affect, negative affect, social support, marital discord, common somatic symptoms, and frequency of musculoskeletal pain. This study highlights the immediate detrimental effects of job insecurity on the physical, psychological, and social functioning of employees. There is a need for the development of front line interventions to prevent these effects from developing into chronic conditions with considerable cost for the individual and society in general.
Burnout poses a substantial problem for physicians' well-being and for the quality of health care. The role of workload in comparison to subjective work characteristics has been rarely studied. The ...purpose of this study was to explore the associations of burnout with workload and subjective work characteristics in internal medicine specialists and residents.
A cross-sectional study using an anonymous mailed survey was used. Some 103 specialists and 143 residents participated in the study. Burnout was measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Subjective work characteristics included perceived job demands in terms of time pressure, mental effort and emotional labor. Workload was assessed in terms of average number of hours worked per week.
Emotional exhaustion in medical specialists was only predicted by perceived job demands odds ratio 3.7 (CI 1.7–7.9),
P
<
0.001. Emotional exhaustion in medical residents was only predicted by emotional labor odds ratio 1.9 (CI 1.2–3.0),
P
=
0.003. Depersonalization among medical specialists was only predicted by emotional labor odds ratio 2.7 (CI 1.1–6.7),
P
=
0.032, while depersonalization among medical residents was only predicted by number of hours worked per week odds ratio 1.1 (CI 1.1–1.2),
P
=
0.007.
Perceived working conditions were more important than workload in explaining the variance in burnout. In addition, burnout in medical specialists and residents was linked to different characteristics of their working environment.
During summer 2010, 262 human cases including 35 deaths from West Nile virus (WNV) infection were reported from Central Macedonia, Greece. Evidence from mosquitoes, birds and blood donors ...demonstrated that the epidemic was caused by WNV lineage 2, which until recently was considered of low virulence. We conducted a household seroprevalence study to estimate the spread of infection in the population during the epidemic, ascertain the relationship of infection to clinical disease, and identify risk factors for infection.
We used a two-stage cluster design to select a random sample of residents aged ≥18 years in the outbreak epicentre. We collected demographic, medical, and risk factor data using standard questionnaires and environmental checklists, and tested serum samples for presence of WNV IgG and IgM antibodies using ELISA.
Overall, 723 individuals participated in the study, and 644 blood samples were available. Weighted seropositivity for IgG antibodies was 5.8% (95% CI: 3.8-8.6; n=41). We estimated that about 1 in 130 (1:141 to 1:124) infected individuals developed WNV neuroinvasive disease, and approximately 18% had clinical manifestations attributable to their infection. Risk factors for infection reflected high exposure to mosquitoes; rural residents were particularly at risk (prevalence ratio: 8.2, 95% CI: 1.1-58.7).
This study adds to the evidence that WNV lineage 2 strains can cause significant illness, demonstrating ratios of infection to clinical disease similar to those found previously for WNV lineage 1.
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the mobilization of all available health care resources, including private, for-profit ones. The aim of this multiple methods study (combination of document and ...secondary data analysis) was to assess government regulations facilitating the private health sector's participation in the COVID-19 response in Greece. During the pandemic, the government made three successive increases in private providers’ reimbursement fees, provided additional financial incentives to private providers, and allocated €280 million of emergency funding for the private sector's involvement in the national COVID-19 response. In response, private hospitals made available on average 2.2% of their total bed capacity per epidemic wave for the treatment of COVID-19 patients and 1.7% of their total bed capacity for the treatment of non-COVID-19 patients transferred from National Health System (NHS) hospitals. In 2020 the five largest health care corporate groups maintained their revenues, while in 2021 they increased them by 18.7%—a striking comparison with the 9% recession experienced by the Greek economy in 2020 and its 8.4% recovery in 2021. In a time of an acute public health crisis, private health care providers responded to society's pressing health care needs by insulating their facilities from COVID-19 patients and NHS patient transfers, minimizing their social contribution and safeguarding their revenues and profits.
Empirical evidence on how ownership type affects the quality and cost of medical care is growing, and debate on these topics is ongoing. Despite the fact that the private sector is a major provider ...of hospital services in Greece, little comparative information on private versus public sector hospitals is available. The aim of the present study was to describe and compare the operation and performance of private for-profit (PFP) and public hospitals in Greece, focusing on differences in nurse staffing rates, average lengths of stay (ALoS), and Social Health Insurance (SHI) payments for hospital care per patient discharged.
Five different datasets were prepared and analyzed, two of which were derived from information provided by the National Statistical Service (NSS) of Greece and the other three from data held by the three largest SHI schemes in the country. All data referred to the 3-year period from 2001 to 2003.
PFP hospitals in Greece are smaller than public hospitals, with lower patient occupancy, and have lower staffing rates of all types of nurses and highly qualified nurses compared with public hospitals. Calculation of ALoS using NSS data yielded mixed results, whereas calculations of ALoS and SHI payments using SHI data gave results clearly favoring the public hospital sector in terms of cost-efficiency; in all years examined, over all specialties and all SHI schemes included in our study, unweighted ALoS and SHI payments for hospital care per discharge were higher for PFP facilities.
In a mixed healthcare system, such as that in Greece, significant performance differences were observed between PFP and public hospitals. Close monitoring of healthcare provision by hospital ownership type will be essential to permit evidence-based decisions on the future of the public/private mix in terms of healthcare provision.
The global economic crisis has affected the Greek economy with unprecedented severity, making Greece an important test of the relationship between socioeconomic determinants and a population's ...well-being. Suicide and homicide mortality rates among men increased by 22.7% and 27.6%, respectively, between 2007 and 2009, and mental disorders, substance abuse, and infectious disease morbidity showed deteriorating trends during 2010 and 2011. Utilization of public inpatient and primary care services rose by 6.2% and 21.9%, respectively, between 2010 and 2011, while the Ministry of Health's total expenditures fell by 23.7% between 2009 and 2011. In a time of economic turmoil, rising health care needs and increasing demand for public services collide with austerity and privatization policies, exposing Greece's population health to further risks.
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