Making cots a thing of the past in public hospitals
An electronic platform at the operations headquarters of the National Center for Emergency Assistance that had fallen into disuse has been reactivated on the orders of the Health Ministry in a bid to tackle overcrowding at public hospitals.
The reactivation of the Filolaos platform obliges hospitals to register how many free beds they have and which departments are over-stretched before they go on emergency duty so as to put a stop to phenomena like the recent case of a major Athens hospital that had to add 34 cot beds and accommodate 140 patients in unrelated departments during its shift last week.
Another key intervention concerns activating smaller hospitals to take in patients from big ones like the Attikon, Evangelismos, Gennimatas and Laiko when they reach capacity during emergency duty. Both interventions allow paramedics to take patients directly to where they can be treated more efficiently.
