By Penny Bouloutza - Kathimerini

The Health Ministry is planning to impose sanctions on interns that refuse to staff health units in the provinces. New regulations are to be added to the bill on hospital procurements according to which interns will only be recruited for health units outside Attica and Thessaloniki. Only doctors that have served at least a year in a regional hospital will be eligible for a post in the hospitals of Attica and Thessaloniki.

In addition, according to the new regulation, if doctors refuse to take up their post in a health unit they will be taken off the list of interns awaiting appointment and may reapply only after two years have elapsed.

Alexandros Limnaios, orthopediatrician at the Syros Hospital, said there was a lack of incentives for doctors to work in remote frontier regions. Although the Cyclades prefecture is characterized as «a remote and frontier area» there are few incentives for doctors to work there. Professional and scientific progression is very difficult. To attend a seminar, doctors have to pay their own transport and accommodation expenses. Accommodation is a particular problem for doctors. Unlike civil service staff in a remote frontier region who receive a housing benefit, doctors are not entitled to one.