Greek doctors flocking to Cyprus to work in Gesy

Faced with ever-increasing discouragement at home, Greek doctors are seeking work in Cyprus, and according to a press report this weekend flooding Gesy.

Understaffing, poor infrastructure and low wages are among reasons pushing Greek doctors to make the move to Cyprus.

Greek Sunday newspaper To Vima said the salary for doctors in the health service can earn up to €5,000 less than the respective ones in Cyprus, without calculating allowances and overtime.

Ιntensivist-anaesthesiologist Patroula Manolopoulou, who had been working for the Greek health system (Esy) for 25 years, told the newspaper that taking the decision to leave behind a structured life at the age of 60 was not easy.

She told the weekly newspaper that she left her job at Patra general hospital to move to Cyprus and that she was not the only one.

“There are clinics in Cyprus staffed almost solely by Greeks,” she said.

Greek doctors have described Cyprus’ still young health system (Gesy) as a professional paradise with high pay and ideal working conditions.

“Oncologists, gynaecologists, surgeons from Greece come here because they have nothing to lose. They cannot live there any more. Here they may not get rich, but at least you live like a human being,” general practitioner Evangelos Klapakis said.

Klapakis has been living and working in Cyprus along with his gynaecologist wife for the past six years.

Manolopoulou said she left Greece with a director’s basic net salary of €1,980 and came to Cyprus earning twice that, which triples if you add allowances and raises.

Apart from the remuneration packages, Greek doctors say they are met with respect and gratitude for their work.

Marcela Volneanski left her job as general practitioner in Kefalonia to come to Cyprus to get away from a continuously deteriorating Esy.

What pushed her over the brink was the exhaustion from long hours, the consecutive night shifts and the fact that she was always on the move from hospital to practice and back again.

In Cyprus, Volneanski works eight-hour days five times a week.

Manolopoulou said she visits Greece often and finds nothing has changed.

“A half-dead Esy is roaming around and no one is taking the decision to euthanise or resurrect it,” she told To Vima.

Her three-year contract with Gesy will soon expire and she will be signing an indefinite contract.

“I am working in an organised system, in a large and very good unit, I am part of a high-level scientific team, I am paid adequately and above all I feel that the state is not mocking me and I am being respected,” Manolopoulou said.