Re: Greek economic crisis: not a tragedy for health
An Open Letter to the Greek Government
Dear Editor,
I sincerely hope that the letter by Dr. Thomais Kakouli is read by the Greek Prime Minister, since it represents the plea of very many academics and health professionals. If read I hope that it is acted upon.
However, as pointed out by Martin McKee denial of the obvious health effects of crisis is part of the problem space and no where is it more acute as in Greece.
My one addition to the letter would be that austerity is government mandated with the Troika its willing instrument.
The concerns expressed are more than legitimate and reflect upon a climate where the obligation of citizens is a one way street, to shore up the state, at a time when the health sector is within a hair’s breadth of failing and the health of the Greek people is under threat.
The culprits are governance deficits, misguided policies, absence of professionalism and party peddling in lieu of systems and science.
After long-term and sustained efforts to extricate itself out of a state of functional limbo, a small school of public health, one of the first in Europe, with a prestigious past still fights for its institutional life.
The School's credits include the eradication of malaria and the control of tuberculosis, support for the NHS and specific activities in the Balkans and the wider region.
It conducted the first Balkan health forum with the support of the WHO and the EU, responded to provisions for public health in the Treaty of Maastricht and has lent a hand in the development of new schools.
It was a founding member of Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region and has been an active member for half of its existence.
Its pedigree relates it to Schools in Ankara, London and Zagreb via the League of Nations and the Rockefeller foundation.
The Athens school got underway after a pandemic of dengue fever entered Greece from Syria via Lebanon to send shivers of fear through European capitals.
For more than 80 years it has transacted educational programmes, research and provided continual service to the state, within a legal framework, which clearly recognizing the nature of its higher educational level status in public health, under the umbrella of the Ministry of Health.
Paradoxically, ever changing reform has not yet found a way to place the National School of Public Health, since 1994, in the system of higher education. In the current climate it remains defenceless, its prestige threatened and its advancement further stalled.
In Greece, there exists a potential danger for the re-emergence of once controlled diseases such as malaria, rabies, and tuberculosis etc.
Who can say if or when dengue fever might strike again in the current fiscal? What will Europe do then?
Again, I would argue that much more attention should be given to disaster preparation and the establishment of an EU Center, Greece to monitor the encroachment of public health disaster, imprint and evolution.
Here and now, the historical school of public health should be upgraded and the Open Letter of Kakouli to the Greek should be heeded and acted upon by the Greek political world.
Politicians after all, are mainly responsible for the current mess in public health and for the ongoing creeping health disaster that threatens population health.
They should at least make some amends and help restore the autonomy of all health sector institutions and curtail the “brutal and self-defeating fiscal austerity”.
Jeffrey Levett
References
Re: Greek economic crisis: not a tragedy for health
Levett Jeffrey, Creeping Disaster - Austerity’s Rapid Rise, Health’s Slow Demise [To be presented 18th World Congress on Disaster & Emergency Medicine, Manchester, United Kingdom 28-31 May,2013]
Neighbors in the Balkans: Initiating a dialogue for health, (2000) Editors, A. Ritsatakis, J.Levett, J. Kyriopoulos, WHO/CoE/INTERREG, Exandas Press, Athens
Implementation of the Human Security concept in the Balkan region, Declaration, Brioni Island, Croatia, 2010 [Compiled and written by Jeffrey Levett] ECPD, UN University for Peace, Belgrade.
Laaser U., Donev D., Levett Jeffrey, Skopje Declaration, Public Health, Peace and Human Rights CMJ(2000)
Competing interests: None declared
Rapid Response:
Re: Greek economic crisis: not a tragedy for health
An Open Letter to the Greek Government
Dear Editor,
I sincerely hope that the letter by Dr. Thomais Kakouli is read by the Greek Prime Minister, since it represents the plea of very many academics and health professionals. If read I hope that it is acted upon.
However, as pointed out by Martin McKee denial of the obvious health effects of crisis is part of the problem space and no where is it more acute as in Greece.
My one addition to the letter would be that austerity is government mandated with the Troika its willing instrument.
The concerns expressed are more than legitimate and reflect upon a climate where the obligation of citizens is a one way street, to shore up the state, at a time when the health sector is within a hair’s breadth of failing and the health of the Greek people is under threat.
The culprits are governance deficits, misguided policies, absence of professionalism and party peddling in lieu of systems and science.
After long-term and sustained efforts to extricate itself out of a state of functional limbo, a small school of public health, one of the first in Europe, with a prestigious past still fights for its institutional life.
The School's credits include the eradication of malaria and the control of tuberculosis, support for the NHS and specific activities in the Balkans and the wider region.
It conducted the first Balkan health forum with the support of the WHO and the EU, responded to provisions for public health in the Treaty of Maastricht and has lent a hand in the development of new schools.
It was a founding member of Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region and has been an active member for half of its existence.
Its pedigree relates it to Schools in Ankara, London and Zagreb via the League of Nations and the Rockefeller foundation.
The Athens school got underway after a pandemic of dengue fever entered Greece from Syria via Lebanon to send shivers of fear through European capitals.
For more than 80 years it has transacted educational programmes, research and provided continual service to the state, within a legal framework, which clearly recognizing the nature of its higher educational level status in public health, under the umbrella of the Ministry of Health.
Paradoxically, ever changing reform has not yet found a way to place the National School of Public Health, since 1994, in the system of higher education. In the current climate it remains defenceless, its prestige threatened and its advancement further stalled.
In Greece, there exists a potential danger for the re-emergence of once controlled diseases such as malaria, rabies, and tuberculosis etc.
Who can say if or when dengue fever might strike again in the current fiscal? What will Europe do then?
Again, I would argue that much more attention should be given to disaster preparation and the establishment of an EU Center, Greece to monitor the encroachment of public health disaster, imprint and evolution.
Here and now, the historical school of public health should be upgraded and the Open Letter of Kakouli to the Greek should be heeded and acted upon by the Greek political world.
Politicians after all, are mainly responsible for the current mess in public health and for the ongoing creeping health disaster that threatens population health.
They should at least make some amends and help restore the autonomy of all health sector institutions and curtail the “brutal and self-defeating fiscal austerity”.
Jeffrey Levett
References
Re: Greek economic crisis: not a tragedy for health
Levett Jeffrey, Creeping Disaster - Austerity’s Rapid Rise, Health’s Slow Demise [To be presented 18th World Congress on Disaster & Emergency Medicine, Manchester, United Kingdom 28-31 May,2013]
Neighbors in the Balkans: Initiating a dialogue for health, (2000) Editors, A. Ritsatakis, J.Levett, J. Kyriopoulos, WHO/CoE/INTERREG, Exandas Press, Athens
Implementation of the Human Security concept in the Balkan region, Declaration, Brioni Island, Croatia, 2010 [Compiled and written by Jeffrey Levett] ECPD, UN University for Peace, Belgrade.
Laaser U., Donev D., Levett Jeffrey, Skopje Declaration, Public Health, Peace and Human Rights CMJ(2000)
Competing interests: None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests