Health and the financial crisis in Greece

摘要

My scientific and institutional role obliges me to comment, from a political perspective, on Alexander Kentikelenis and colleagues' Correspondence: "Health effects of financial crisis: omens of a Greek tragedy" (Oct 22, p 1457) Indeed there are problems in the Greek health system. However, Kentikelenis and colleagues' criticism is based on 2007-09 data, under Greece's conservative administration, and not on recent data under the present socialist administration. This "tragic" national health service (NHS) witnessed a 20% increase in admissions in 2010 compared with 2009.2 Furthermore, data envelopment analysis showed an increase in hospital efficiency (unpublished data), implying that the crisis has not had a short-term effect on NHS services.