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European Union of Private Hospitals

Major challenges for private hospitals during summertime

JULY 2019.

We have to deal with emergency patients, basically tourists who visit big cities and many who visit the Greek islands.There is not a clear plan implemented by the Health Ministry. All clinics have air condition, which is not the case with public hospitals. Many of them don’t have air-conditioning systems.

Grigoris Sarafianos, President of the Panhellenic Union of Private Hospitals

The Sarafianos private hospital, Thessaloniki, in focus

How does the activity of the Sarafianos private hospital change in the summertime?

In the summertime, because of increased tourism flows, we have more emergency patients, mostly for general surgery and orthopedics. At the same time, most regular surgeries are scheduled for fall, from September onwards.

Which departments are the most impacted?

Orthopedics and cardiology.

Your clinic offers dialysis services for tourists, how does it work?

We offer dialysis services to patients that want to spend their holidays in the wider Thessaloniki region while still doing 4-hour dialysis sessions every other day. We attract patients from all around Europe, who find us through specialized websites for renal patients.

What is your plan to develop health tourism in your hospital?

There are two kinds of heath tourism: scheduled and emergency incidents. Unfortunately, the first type has not yet been adequately developed in Greece. On the other hand, the second type is at satisfactory level due to the significant increase of incoming tourists in the past few years.