keepTalkingGreece — The economic crisis and the strict austerity bound to the loan agreement kill. They kill Greeks. The Bank of Greece may not write it in such a melodramatic way on its Monetary Policy Report 2015-2016. However, the conclusions in the chapter about “Reforms in health, economic crisis and impact on the health of population” are shocking and confirm what we have been hearing and reading around from relatives and friends in the last years: that the physical and mental health of Greeks has been deteriorating – partly due to economic insecurity, high unemployment, job insecurity, income decrease and constant exposure to stress. Partly also due to economic problems that have patients cut their treatment, partly due to the incredible cuts and shortages in the public health system.
The Report notes that “while it takes longer to record the exact effect, trends show a deterioration of the health of Greeks in the years of loan agreements and austerity cuts.”
The BoG states:
– Suicides increased. “The risk of suicidal behavior increases when there are so-called primary risk factors (psychiatric-medical conditions), while the secondary factors (economic situation) and tertiary factors (age, gender) affects the risk of suicide, but only if primary risk factors pre-exist.
– Infant mortality increased by nearly 50%, mainly due to increase of deaths of infants younger than one year, and the decline of births by 22,1%. Infant mortality increase: 2.65% in 2008 and 3.75% in 2014
– Increase of parts of population with mental illness, especially with depression. Increase: 3.,3% in 2008 to 6.8% in 2009, to 8.2% in 2011 and to 12.3% in 2013. In 2014, a 4.7% of the population above 15 years old declared it suffered form depression – that was 2.6% in 2009.
-Increase of chronic diseases increased by approximately 24%.
The BoG notes that “the large cuts in public expenditure have not been accompanied by changes and improvement of the health system in order to limit the consequences for the weakest citizens and vulnerable groups of the society.”
The report of the Governor of the Bank of Greece reckons surveys conducted by Greek Statistic Authorities (ELSTAT) and according to which:
- a significant increase of 24.2% of people aged 15+ suffering from chronic health problem or chronic disease.
- increase of more than 15% of people who limited their activities due to health problems in 2014.
- percentage of low-weight (below 2.5 kg) births increased by 19% in 2008-2010, and that this is associated with long-term negative effects on the health and the development of children.
Citing OECD data of 2013, the BoG underlines that 79% of the population in Greece had no medical insurance and therefore without medical care and medicine due to long-term unemployment, while self-employed could not afford to pay their social contributions.
A survey conducted in 2014 by ELSTAT showed that part of population above 15 years old was in need of medical help but did not receive it due to lack of financial means:
- 13% of population did not receive medical care or treatment
- 15.4% of population did not receive dental care of treatment
- 4.3% of population did not receive mental health care services
- 11.2% did not take the prescription medicine prescribed by doctors.
The same survey shows a decrease in private hospital admissions and increase in public hospital with the effect that public hospitals are not able to cope with the increase demands due to austerity budget and personnel cuts. Public hospital admission in 2009 were 1.6 million, and 2.5 million in 2014.
According to the survey, percentage of population that needed to receive medical-nursing care and received it in delay or not at all was:
- 13.1% due to long waiting list
- 6.1% due to long distance or transportation problems
- 9.4% due to lack of specialised doctors and health personnel.
The BoG report warns that the economic crisis and the devaluation of the health sector threaten to shrink the life-expectancy.
