Tsipras and Georgiadis clash over ESY staffing shortages at Kalamata hospital

Tsipras cites Kalamata staff testimony

Alexis Tsipras, the former prime minister who now leads the Hellenic Left Alliance (ELAS), attacked Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis in a social media post dated 4 November. The post drew on accounts from doctors and nurses at the Kalamata hospital, whom Tsipras had met during a visit to Messinia. He argued that these testimonies answered the minister's television appearances, posts he described as ironic and populist, and language he called derogatory toward political rivals, health workers and patients who complain. Tsipras said the staff's own accounts showed the National Health System (ESY) was underfunded and understaffed, leaving patients worse served than citizens are entitled to expect.

“Doctors and nurses, who are fighting to keep the National Health System from collapsing, describe the problems that threaten the very existence of a public National Health System.”

The testimony from Kalamata

The staff described exhausting on-call shifts, job announcements that attract no applicants, and shifts with two nurses for 30 patients. One testimony said almost everyone in the department suffers from burnout, and another said the region had no haemodynamic lab at weekends across the Peloponnese. Tsipras also quoted a claim that human lives were being lost because of the shortages, and asked the minister to respond to each complaint. He contrasted these accounts with the ministry's inauguration events, pointing to renovated wards beside areas where plaster falls and water runs, and donated CT scanners that lack enough staff to operate them. He also said waiting lists push patients to seek political favours to get timely surgery.

Georgiadis hits back

Georgiadis responded in comments to ERTNews on 5 November, extending a feud between the government and ELAS. On Tsipras's claims about shortages, he said he had never denied them.

“I never said we do not have shortages. Of course we have shortages. All health systems have shortages.”

He then turned to staffing levels. Georgiadis said ESY had 90,000 staff under Tsipras and 105,000 under Mitsotakis, a gap he described as about 16%, and asked how staff could be missing at the higher level. He presented the figures as proof that the earlier number was not sufficient to avoid complaints.

Under Tsipras (per Georgiadis)90,000

Under Mitsotakis (per Georgiadis)105,000

Under Tsipras (per Georgiadis)

90000 staff

Under Mitsotakis (per Georgiadis)

105000 staff

Data from the article text

A wider row over corruption claims

Georgiadis linked his remarks to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis's comments about Elon Musk. He said the idea that a billionaire could buy an election outcome disgusts him, and that such figures losing when they try to interfere in elections is encouraging for democracy. He also said economic oligarchy had backed Tsipras's return to politics and was now being defeated. On the criminal codes and Tsipras's remarks about Nicolas Maduro, Georgiadis said the government had not suddenly decided to revisit the codes, and claimed that suitcases had gone to Tsipras from the Maduro government. He rejected Tsipras's claim that his government was the most corrupt ever and that he was the most honest prime minister, saying Tsipras is not an innocent dove.

“When you are Tsipras and you have all of that on your back, you are not entitled to wag your finger at others about corruption and integrity.”