Cancer patients may wait up to two months for treatment, health minister concedes
Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis conceded on Thursday that cancer patients are waiting up to two months for treatment at state hospitals but said the government would be hiring another 400 doctors this year and 500 in 2014 to remedy the situation.
The waiting lists for radiation therapy units at several major hospitals including Evangelismos, Alexandra and Attikon in Athens and the Papageorgiou in Thessaloniki stretch to two months, according to data submitted in Parliament on Thursday by Georgiadis in response to a question by Democratic Left deputy Spyros Lykoudis. At hospitals elsewhere, the situation is worse. Cancer patients wanting to book radioactive iodine therapy at the university hospital in Iraklio, Crete, must wait until October 2014.
