ATHENS — "Instead of requisitioning private clinics, the government is giving them the opportunity to cash in during the most crucial moment of the pandemic," stated main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance spokesperson Nassos Iliopoulos, speaking to Radio Thessaloniki on Wednesday.

Iliopoulos fully blamed the government for the current state of the healthcare system, accusing it of not believing in a strong public health system.

"When Interior Minister Makis Voridis claimed yesterday that the requisitioning of private clinics is a 'needless cost' this clearly means that there is a hard neoliberal choice that the private sector should be kept out of the fray," he said.

He claimed that the forced recruitment of private doctors is not the most effective way to solve the problem of the huge pressure on the public health system because the shortage was in beds. "Every day over 100 patients are on ventilators outside the ICUs. What is necessary in these conditions, and the government does not do it, is to requisition private clinics," he said, while noting that the way the government has promoted the use of private clinics so far amounts to profiteering.