Greek doctors unpaid for five months

World

Greek doctors unpaid for five months

Close

A sign taped to a wall in an Athens hospital appealed for civility from patients.

01 November,2012 08:16 pm

The doctors on duty have been unpaid since May, it read, Please respect their work.Patients and their relatives glanced up briefly and moved on, hardened to such messages of gloom. In a country where about 1,000 people lose their jobs each day, legions more are still employed but havent seen a paycheck in months.What used to be an anomaly has become commonplace, and those who have jobs that pay on time consider themselves the exception to the rule.To the casual observer, all might appear well in Athens. Traffic still hums by, restaurants and bars are open, people sip iced coffees at sunny sidewalk cafes. But scratch the surface and you find a society in free-fall, ripped apart by the most vicious financial crisis the country has seen in half a century.It has been three years since Greeces government informed its fellow members in the 17-country group that uses the euro that its deficit was far higher than originally reported. It was the fuse that sparked financial turmoil still weighing heavily on eurozone countries.Countless rounds of negotiations ensued as European countries and the International Monetary Fund struggled to determine how best to put a lid on the crisis and stop it spreading.The result: Greece had to introduce stringent austerity measures in return for two international rescue loan packages worth a total of €240 billion ($313 billion), slashing salaries and pensions and hiking taxes.The reforms have been painful, and the country faces a sixth year of recession.Life in Athens is often punctuated by demonstrations big and small, sometimes on a daily basis. Rows of shuttered shops stand between the restaurants that have managed to stay open. Vigilantes roam inner city neighborhoods, vowing to clean up what they claim the demoralized police have failed to do. Right-wing extremists beat migrants, anarchists beat the right-wing thugs and desperate local residents quietly cheer one side or the other as society grows increasingly polarized.Our society is on a razors edge, Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said recently, after striking shipyard workers broke into the grounds of the Defense Ministry. If we cant contain ourselves, if we cant maintain our social cohesion, if we cant continue to act within the rules ... I fear we will end up being a jungle.CRUMBLING LIVING STANDARDSVassilis Tsiknopoulos, runs a stall at Athens central fish market and has been working since age 15. He used to make a tidy profit, he says, pausing to wrap red mullet in a paper cone for a customer. But families cant afford to spend much anymore, and many restaurants have shut down.The 38-year-old fishmonger now barely breaks even.I start work at 2:30 a.m. and work till the afternoon, until about 4 p.m. Shouldnt I have something to show for that? Theres no point in working just to cover my costs. ... Tell me, is this a life?The fish markets president, Spyros Korakis, says there has been a 70 percent drop in business over the past three years. Above the din of fish sellers shouting out prices and customers jostling for a better deal, Korakis explained how the days of big spenders were gone, with people buying ever smaller quantities and choosing cheaper fish.Private businesses have closed down in the thousands. Unemployment stands at a record 25 percent, with more than half of Greeces young people out of work. Caught between plunging incomes and ever increasing taxes, families are finding it hard to make ends meet.Higher heating fuel prices have meant many apartment tenants have opted not to buy heating fuel this year. Instead, theyll make do with blankets, gas heaters and firewood to get through the winter. Lines at soup kitchens have grown longer.At the end of the day, as the fish market gradually packed up, a beggar crawled around the stalls, picking up the fish discarded onto the floor and into the gutters.Ive been here since 1968. My father, my grandfather ran this business, Korakis said. Weve never seen things so bad.Tsiknopoulos patience is running out.Im thinking of shutting down, he said, I think about it every day. That, and leaving Greece.JUSTICEOn a recent morning in a crowded civil cases court in the northern city of Thessaloniki, frustration simmered. Plaintiffs, defendants and lawyers all waited for the inevitable yet another postponement, yet another court date.Greeces sclerotic justice system has been hit by a protracted strike that has left courts only functioning for an hour a day as judges and prosecutors protest salary cuts.For Giorgos Vacharelis, it means his long quest for justice has grown longer. Vacharelis younger brother was beaten to death in a fairground in 2003. The attacker was convicted of causing a fatal injury and jailed. The family felt the reasons behind the 24-year-olds death had never been fully explained, and filed a civil suit for damages. Nearly 10 years later, Vacharelis and his parents had hoped the case would finally be over.But the court date they were given in late September got caught up the strike. Now they have a new date: Feb. 28, 2014.This means more costs for them, but above all more psychological damage because each time they go through the murder of their relative again, said Nikos Dialynas, the familys lawyer.Vacharelis and his family are in despair.If a foreigner saw how the justice system works in Greece, he would say were crazy, said the 35-year-old.Each time we come to court we get even more outraged, he said. We see a theater of the absurd.