Paediatric care in Greece

Subject: Paediatric care in Greece

With young children needing care being forced to wait for hours to be examined or given a bed in a paediatric hospital or clinic, the situation in Greece is extremely precarious. Massively overworked nursing and medical staff have been driven beyond their limits in attempting to meet the needs of patients.

Not only are the measures adopted by the EU and implemented by Member States failing to remedy the enormous shortfall in resources, but they are perpetuating and aggravating the situation. The result is constant staff transfers and recruitment on part-time contracts in Greece and other Member States.

In the light of this:

1. Can the Commission say what view it takes of the fact that the precarious situation for children and newborn's in Greece and other countries regarding even ‘the most basic rights such as healthcare’ is attributable to EU and national government strategies under the spurious EU ‘child guarantee’ programme?

2. What view does it take of the fact that the commercialisation of health through private-public partnerships is resulting in the understaffing of paediatric hospitals and clinics, thereby jeopardising the lives, health and safety of children and newborns and placing a heavy financial burden on families?

3. What view does it take of calls for measures to ensure that public health care facilities are fully staffed and provided with all the necessary equipment and infrastructures, so as to ensure that comprehensive paediatric care can be provided promptly, safely, and free of charge to all children?

Submitted: 27.1.2023

Answer given by Ms Kyriakides on behalf of the European Commission

(21 March 2023)

1. The European Pillar of Social Rights (1) recognises children’s right to quality affordable early childhood education and care (ECEC). The European Strategy on the Rights of the Child (2), the European Care Strategy (3) and the recommendation for the revision of the Barcelona targets (4) encourages Member States to increase participation in ECEC and access to childcare services (5). The European Child Guarantee calls for improvements for most vulnerable groups (6).

The European Social Fund+ (7) will continue to invest in access to childcare in Greece. The Greek investments and reforms supported under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) are expected to create more than 53 000 new early childcare places and invest in special early childhood intervention programmes for over 1 400 children with disabilities.

1 ∙ ⸱ https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/economy-works-people/jobs-growth-and-investment/european-pillar-social-

rights/european-pillar-social-rights-20-principles_en

2 ∙ ⸱ https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/rights-child/eu-strategy-rights-child-and-european-child-guarantee_en

3 ∙ ⸱ https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_5169

4 ∙ ⸱ https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/carriage/european-care-strategy/report?sid=6201

5 ∙ ⸱ Member States should encourage female labour-market participation by providing high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in line with

national patterns of provision, ensuring that by 2030: (a) at least 50% of children below the age of 3 participate in ECEC; and (b) at least 96% of children between the age of 3 and the starting age for compulsory primary education participate in ECEC. 6 ∙ ⸱ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32021H1004 7 ∙ ⸱ https://ec.europa.eu/european-social-fund-plus/en














| | )2. The Health at a Glance 2022 report (8) recognised the mental and physical health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children. According to Article 168 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, Member States are responsible for the delivery of health services (9). The Commission supports efforts to reduce health workforce shortages through the project on health workforce planning under the EU4Health programme and five projects on medical deserts, staff retention and task shifting under the third Health programme (10).

3. The Commission conducts regular policy dialogues with Member States within the European Semester (11) (12). Furthermore, the Greek Government has committed to reforms and sizeable investments as part of its Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) to upgrade and modernise hospitals and health centres, and strengthen public health and preventio n (13), targeting also children. The Commission monitors the implementation by Greece of the RRP.

8 ∙ ⸱ https://health.ec.europa.eu/state-health-eu/health-glance-europe_en

9 ∙ ⸱ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A12008E168

10 ∙ ⸱ https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/hpf/ — https://oasesproject.eu/ — https://route-hwf.eu/ — https://ahead.health/ — https://tashiproject.eu/ —

https://meteorproject.eu/project-meteor/

11 ∙ ⸱ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EL/TXT/DOC/?uri=CELEX:52020SC0507&from=EN

12 ∙ ⸱ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EL/TXT/DOC/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0508&from=EN

13 ∙ ⸱ https://greece20.gov.gr/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/NRRP_Greece_2_0_English.pdf