With Greece’s most popular islands overrun by tourists during another record season, shortages of doctors are leaving some medical centers unable to cope with the needs of visitors who swell the numbers in the summer.

The medical center on Paros, whose population of 15,000 doubles in the summer, is staffed by just three doctors. “To cover demand we have to bring another medic from Antiparos for a few days a month,” an employee of the Paros medical center told Kathimerini.

“There have been occasions where they needed a doctor on Antiparos but he was here,” the worker said.
Tinos, another popular island which is particularly busy at this time of year and has been growing in popularity as an alternative to overwhelmed Santorini, also has only three doctors on rotation.

On Corfu, where the population of 110,000 swells four times in the summer, two doctors quit because of the pressure, the paper said.

The union of Aegean island health center staff sent the national federation of Greek hospital workers a report detailing the shortages before the summer calling for action but nothing apparently was done and the peak season is slowing but Greece remains popular now on the islands into October.