Intermediate units needed
«Every year, about 13,000 Greek patients are admitted to intensive care. About 21 percent do not recover, a percentage that does not diverge from international norms,» said Professor Giorgos Baltopoulos of Athens University’s Intensive Care and Pulmonary Medicine Department. According to evaluations made in 1997, Greece needed another 560 intensive care beds – a figure that should now be some 12 percent higher. There are also very few additional care units (MAF). According to Baltopoulos, in Attica, where most of the population is concentrated, there is one large MAF at the Sotiria Hospital and others at the Korgaleneio-Benakeio, Sismanogleio and General State, among others. «We propose setting up more wherever there are intensive care units with at least 50 percent of the capacity of the latter, because about 30 percent of patients admitted to intensive care could easily be handled by an MAF unit. The same could be said for patients with chronic respiratory ailments, who comprise 15 percent of intensive care patients. There are 328 specialist appointments in intensive care in state hospitals and we have asked for another 91 for the next two years,» he added. Baltopoulos said the greatest problem was the shortage of nursing staff. There should be three nurses to each bed in intensive care to cover all shifts. At the moment there are two per bed. Also needed is a a renewal of equipment and a better allocation of space. «There is clearly room for improvement here. The political will is there, but what we need is concrete action,» concluded Baltopoulos. «Either GAK should send people to the ministries to monitor archives or else each ministry should appoint people to be in charge of the archives and to inform GAK of the administrative usefulness of their particular files,» he said.
