When the former Deputy Minister of Health, Mina Gagavisited the area – the September of 2023 – and he had said that it fits one NEW hospital in Kozani, this statement had provoked the strong reaction of various people in Ptolemaida, who felt that such a development would constitute the indirect “burial” of Bodosakeios, as the creation of a new large hospital at the intersection of Egnatia Road, as dreamed by the then Municipal Authority of Malouta , would also mark the end of the Ptolemais hospital. In the same project viewers (again), because, this time, the Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiades, in the context of a television show, he stated that: “Bodosakeio will become the large reference hospital of the region, it has the potential to become the large reference hospital”. respectively causing some reactions (followed by others who like “revolutionary gymnastics”), who consider that this, respectively, will mean the degradation or the end of Mamatseios. First of all, for those who do not know, have forgotten or like to be in meaningless, divisive, conversations, defending one side or the other, Bodosakeio during the pandemic, i.e. for about three years, was a reference hospital in the region and this because, obviously, as an infrastructure, as facilities, it possessed and possesses (until the extension of the new wing in Mamatsio was also completed), some specific building characteristics. This “baptism”, as a reference hospital, neither caused the closure of Mamatseios, nor did it degrade any of its services (problematic or not), which it always offered and continues to offer, but neither did it provide anything extra to Bodosakeio. Therefore, this dangerology and bulldozing, which may follow in the next few days, should not drag, at least, the citizens of the two cities, putting them in a divisive meaningless dispute, of previous years. One referral hospital, the other non-referral hospital, if the respective politicians want to hand out titles in order to gild the pill of local societies, hiding the real problems under the carpet, the bottom line is that titles don’t solve anything. As a reference hospital – and during the pandemic – in Bodosakeio the exact same problems existed as in Mamatsio. Shortages in medical & nursing staff, which continue to exist. After all, there is still a long way to go for the creation of the Health Charter not only in North Macedonia but also in the rest of Greece and it will, SURELY, not result from the “mistakes” or contradictory statements of the Minister in question, who, a few days before , visiting Bodosakeio, had pointed out that he is not here to discuss the health map. When and whenever this famous “map” appears, the basic and essential, permanent, requested for all citizens, that we must mature, judging what happened in previous years and not eat the “shit” of the current rulers or various well-known localists, that in ALL existing hospitals, the basic clinics (Pathology, Cardiology, Surgery, etc.) should be fully staffed with doctors and nurses in order to provide the best possible level of service for the patient. Whether we should have an ICU in Western Macedonia, whether some of the remaining clinics should be in one or the other hospital, let there be as thorough a discussion as is required. All the rest is to find ourselves in pointless and repetitive discussions, so to recycle our misery about who will be the one-eyed among the blind or who will maintain the Chair of Hospital Health, in an area that is faltering at all levels.
The kettle
