ATHENS – Greece’s major opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis, who during 4 ½ years in power made devastating budget cuts, criticized the state of health care under the New Democracy government in a sign the 2023 campaign has begun.

He visited the Childrens’ Hospital of Penteli where he talked with the doctors, the nursing staff and the parents of children being treated at the hospital and spoke of the “tragic state” of pediatric hospitals and an “upsurge of the health crisis,” and drug shortages, said the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency ANA-MPA.

“The National Health System is, perhaps, now at its worst moment than in all the previous years put together,” he said, without mentioning during his tenure the flight of doctors to other countries and public hospitals unable to afford necessities including toilet paper.

“We have many surgeries that are being postponed, many clinics that can’t operate and hundreds of patients on waiting lists, especially in the pediatric hospitals. At the same time, there is huge lack of medicines. The situation is tragic and the responsibilities very high,” he said.

He accused the government of “having led to the falling apart of the National Health System through its devaluation, its privatization , through a policy that has room only for profit and profiteering. A government that does not care about public health is a government that also doesn’t care about societal security,” he said.

“A strong public health system is an answer that concerns both the security of society and social justice. We will fight for it because it is something we owe the Greek people,” Tsipras said, without giving any proposals to fix them.