Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.
https://www.commanderzero.com/The economic crisis in Greece is strangling the country’s hospitals, where budgets have been slashed by more than half. As a result, nearly all doctors in both public and private hospitals have seen their pay cut, delayed or even frozen.
“On top of that, we lack basic supplies to do our jobs,” says Vangelis Papamichalis, a neurologist at the Regional Hospital of Serres in northern Greece and a member of the doctors union here. “We run out of surgical gloves, syringes, vials for blood samples and needles to sew stitches, among other things.”
Last week, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said these shortages will contribute to hospital-acquired infection rates in Greece, which are already among the worst in Europe.
Savvy world-travellers will often, when visiting Third World countries, bring along their own syringes and similar materials in case they need medical attention. https://www.commanderzero.com/The idea being that in most Third World countries customary medical practices we are used to, such as sterilization and not re-using needles, may be absent. So…you bring your own.
This is another reason why it might be smart to stock up on more advanced medical items for your future needs. While you may not have any idea how to use a hemostat, suture, scissors and blade, there will be someone around who does…and who will need clean, sterile, professional instruments. In a First World country like ours, we take it for granted that we can walk into virtually any hospital and find clean, sterile materials. Globally, this is the exception, not the norm. All it takes is a hospital’s vendors refusing to take credit, and a hospital not getting the cash it needs from patients, to exhaust the hospitals supply closets.
Greece was, arguably, somewhere in the range of being a First World country…certainly not a country you think of where hospitals run short of medical equipment. But, that equipment and supplies has to get paid for somehow. And without money, either from funding or patient billing, no one is just going to fork over expensive gear without expecting payment.
Next year we are supposed to have millions more people suddenly ‘have access’ to medical care. Suddenly and drastically increase the demand on a system without a corresponding increase in that systems capacity and you get….an overloaded and failing system. If you thought it sucked to stand around in a hospital waiting for something you’re really gonna hate whats coming.
I’m not saying you need to build a surgical theater in your basement, but I have, in the past, gotten medical treatment in non-medical environments. You know how it is..you need some stitches, a vaccination, something examined, and you happen to have a neighbor or acquaintance who is a doctor or nurse. Sit down on their couch, they swab your arm, jab a few needles, and youre on your way. Those folks, Crom love ‘em, are gonna be worth their weight in gold over the next few years. It’ll be nice to have the gear available to let them do what needs doing.
