Convent’s gynecology assistance
A convent in northern Greece has been providing free preventive medical care for thousands of women who cannot afford private clinic fees or find the months-long wait for appointments at state hospitals too much to bear. Since 1991, a team of Greek and foreign doctors have carried out 88,000 tests at the Monastic Center for Public Health, Disease Prevention and Scientific Research in Ormylia, Halkidiki, part of a European network for the prevention of breast and cervical cancer. The center is in a building a few meters away from the Convent of the Assumption of the Virgin, home to 150 nuns and a dependency of the Mount Athos monastery, Simonopetra. Four of the doctors at the center are nuns. Test results have produced statistics on the incidence of disease in the area. For every 5,000 mammograms carried out, 20-25 cases of breast cancer were discovered, and for every 5,000 pap tests, about 20 cases of cervical cancer and around 200 other conditions requiring surgery were found. Apart from the medical tests, 36,000 people have attended health education classes at the center.
