No work permit without Corona-Pieks: No country takes tough action against vaccination opponents than Greece.
Healthcare workers take to the barricades.
Athens - Gradually it starts to rain, then the rain gets heavier and heavier, the first rainfall in the four million metropolis of Athens after what felt like an endless month. But Despina Tsaousidou, 40, remains undeterred in front of a neat, neoclassical building in downtown Athens on this gloomy morning on the second Friday in October, just as hundreds of other demonstrators do. They chant “Heroes yesterday, suspended today!” They hold banners with slogans like “We say 'No' to compulsion!” Or “No health without freedom”.
Despina Tsaousidou has been a nurse for 18 years.
For six months she has been working in the emergency room in the large public hospital in the south-western Athens working-class suburb of Nikäa.
Normally.
But she hasn't been allowed to do that for a few weeks.
The reason for this: It is not vaccinated.
Against the coronavirus.
Corona: Greece suspends unvaccinated people - with serious consequences
Her supervisor visited her at work: 'He said to me:' Despina, you will be suspended if you do not get vaccinated now.
'I immediately asked him:' Are you blackmailing me? '
He replied: 'No, of course not.
But you have to get vaccinated, Despina. '
I asked him, 'Can you guarantee that nothing will happen to me?
I am a single mother, have one child. '"
For nurse Despina Tsaousidou, the matter is clear: she will not be vaccinated.
“I decide about my body.
No one else.
It's non-negotiable. ”The catch is that this has consequences for her.
Serious.
Professionally, financially, socially.
Day after day.
Greece: Corona vaccination opponents are caught in the suspension trap - officials too
Nowhere is a government cracking down on the unvaccinated than in Greece. There are not only restrictions for them in everyday life, as elsewhere in Europe. In bars, in restaurants. Then the conservative government under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis gave workers in the health sector an ultimatum: whether they are doctors, nurses, administrative employees or technicians in hospitals and smaller health centers or those employed in the EKAB public ambulance service: Unvaccinated, they are no longer allowed to work from September 1st, so was the announcement. And this even though they are full officials.
Furthermore, the suspended staff no longer receive any salary.
Zero euros.
Explosive: Those who are suspended cannot even register as unemployed in order to claim social benefits in their distress.
You are caught in a suspension trap as strange as it is dangerous.
And: as long as you are suspended, this time does not count towards your pension.
Those who get vaccinated can go back to their place of work immediately.
Nevertheless: According to official information, as of September 1, exactly 6,412 employees in hospitals and health centers as well as 500 employees in the EKAB emergency services preferred not to be vaccinated.
This corresponds to around six percent of all employees in the Greek health sector.
That doesn't sound like a lot.
After all, as of October 8, only 59.94 percent of the nearly eleven million Greeks are fully vaccinated.
Conversely, 40 percent of Greeks do not yet have any vaccination protection against Corona.
Hellas has already suffered 15,069 deaths in the corona pandemic.
The seven-day incidence of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants is currently 144, and there are 334 corona patients in intensive care units throughout Hellas.
Protests by anti-corona vaccination opponents: Important workers in the health sector are lacking
The Greek health minister Thanos Plevris, a staunch right-winger in the ruling party Nea Dimokratia (ND), remains tough. He says openly: "Just as a doctor in a cancer clinic has the right not to be vaccinated, so a patient has the right to only be treated by a vaccinated doctor." The tug-of-war between Minister Plevris and the unvaccinated in the health sector continues. And there is no end in sight. Every day the anger, even indignation, of those killed grows. Demonstrations take place almost every day in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Corfu, Crete and elsewhere.
Just like that rainy October day before Greece's Supreme Administrative Court. The occasion: The court is hearing over ten applications against the compulsory vaccination, including those from the umbrella union for workers in the public health sector (Poedin), while Despina Tsaousidou, the relentless nurse, protests in front of the building. She knows: Today she will not have any clarity about her future. The wheels of justice grind slowly at the feet of the Acropolis: the judgments are expected in around three months. So the protest continues.
Dimitris Efthymiadis, 58, an experienced chief doctor from the EKAB rescue service, is literally in the rain.
He is also suspended.
So he has to forego his already not lavish monthly salary of exactly 962.21 euros net.
But what worries Dimitris Efthymiadis far more than the lost money: “I can no longer help my patients.
How come?"
Zisis Delichas, 43, nuclear medicine specialist from the renowned Athens maternity clinic “Alexandra”, has to make ends meet with his wife and a child in the expensive metropolis of Athens without his net salary of 1200 euros.
But even he does not want to bow to the compulsory vaccination, as he asserts.
Vaccination opponents in Greece: Corona deniers and fanatics?
Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that
Anyone who thinks that the people gathered in front of the court under constant rain are just confused corona deniers, religious fanatics, crazy conspiracy theorists or all at once who curse Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the infamous Great Reset, is seriously mistaken.
The unvaccinated in the smock make it clear that they are not generally anti-vaccination. Dimitris Efthymiadis, EKAB's chief physician, says: “We are doctors, scientists. How could we be against scientific progress? ”However, they view the corona vaccines critically, as everyone here explains. Because they have not been adequately tested, because they have side effects. They unanimously demand from the government in Athens: “Take back the suspensions! Immediately! ”They want to be constantly tested and meticulously adhere to the protective measures. Just like since the outbreak of the pandemic.
The lack of suspended staff is noticeable in the hospitals, says Poedin boss Michalis Jannakos.
In an interview with this newspaper, Jannakos complains that there is an “acute shortage of staff” in the health sector after the chronic austerity program.
Tens of thousands of positions are vacant, and now there are also the suspensions of unvaccinated staff.
Meanwhile, YouTube is cracking down on conspiracy theories of anti-corona vaccine opponents.
