ATHENS – “The problem is not a lack of ICU beds but of the specialist staff who are needed there. It is critical that the emergency duty shifts are supported by private clinics,” underlined Health Minister Thanos Plevris while speaking to the public broadcaster ERT on Thursday, regarding the issue of treating Covid-19 patients in ICUs.

The minister stressed that private doctors must decide immediately whether they are going to fill these positions voluntarily. Otherwise, he added, “next week a civil mobilisation will be activated for certain categories, starting in northern Greece”.

Referring to Wednesday’s teleconference with the country’s medical associations, Plevris clarified that “any vacant bed that is available in the private sector and which the National Health System (NHS) needs, it will get through the ambulance service, which continues to manage this matter.”

On his part, the Secretary General for primary healthcare Marios Themistokleous told ERT on Thursday that case numbers were rising but so was the vaccination rate and that the measures were bearing fruit. “Vaccinations have increased 200 percent, both for the first and third doses and this is reflected in the numbers announced,” he said.