Greek Islands Face Health Crisis: Hospitals Operate with Acute Shortage of Doctors and Nurses

Hospitals and health centers on the Greek islands are facing a serious shortage of medical personnel, which is putting pressure on the country’s national health system. This was reported by Euronews. The hospital employees’ union, POEDIN, warns of the problem, stating that chronic underfunding and staff shortages are leading to ward closures, restricted activities, and exhaustion among medical teams.

The situation is most critical in Crete, the Ionian Islands, the Aegean region, and the Cyclades, where hospitals operate with staffing below safe levels, and health authorities are forced to rely on temporary employees, private contractors, and the constant reassignment of staff between different medical facilities.

In Crete, some of the region’s largest hospitals—Venizelio and the PAGNI University Hospital—report acute shortages in almost all specialties. At Venizelio Hospital, three out of 15 intensive care unit beds remain closed due to lack of staff, and only five out of eight operating rooms are functional. Among nurses alone, vacant positions exceed 100.

At the Chania General Hospital, between 40% and 45% of staff positions are unfilled. The pulmonology department has suspended operations, the emergency department functions with only two doctors, and only three out of seven operating tables are in use. Medical professionals also report an increase in cases of aggression against staff due to a lack of security.

The situation is similar in other medical facilities on the island of Crete. At the hospital in Agios Nikolaos, staff numbers have decreased by 20% over the last four years, and intensive care beds have been reduced from six to four. On certain days, the facility operates without an anesthesiologist or a radiologist.

At the hospital in Ierapetra, only one anesthesiologist, one internist, and one pediatrician are currently working.

The problems are not limited to Crete. On the island of Kefalonia, the intensive care unit has never begun operations due to a lack of specialists and nurses. Lefkada Hospital functions with minimal staff, and up to half of the nursing personnel are on fixed-term contracts.

In Corfu, the staffing deficit is also critical. Medical and nursing positions are only about 45% filled. The island’s psychiatric hospital has reduced its permanent staff from 300 to about 100 people, and there has been no child psychiatrist there for over a decade.

The situation in the Aegean Sea is also dire. Rhodes General Hospital owes employees over 15,000 days of unused leave due to chronic overwork. Only two of the seven operating rooms are functional, and modern equipment such as MRI and digital mammography remains unused due to a lack of specialists.

On the island of Samos, the hospital functions without an internist, ophthalmologist, ENT specialist, neurosurgeon, or oncologist. Nurses often work shifts alone, below minimum safety standards.

At the hospital on the island of Chios, intensive care unit capacity is limited due to staff shortages, and some shifts are covered remotely by private companies.

The situation on the smaller islands is particularly alarming. Health centers on Milos, Tinos, Ios, and Amorgos suffer from serious shortages of doctors, nurses, and paramedics, and in some places, there is not a single pediatrician. Unions warn that the systemic staff shortage is pushing some medical facilities toward operational collapse just before the peak tourist season, when the islands’ population increases significantly.

According to hospital worker representatives, the public healthcare system’s dependence on temporary staff, external maintenance firms, and the constant transfer of personnel between different hospitals to cover basic needs is becoming an increasing problem.

In many cases, modern medical technology and entire hospital wards remain unusable not due to a lack of equipment, but because of a lack of people to operate them.