{"id":11831,"date":"2015-10-12T22:28:50","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T19:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/?p=11831"},"modified":"2015-10-12T22:28:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T19:28:50","slug":"metropolitische-kliniek-van-hellinikon-wil-geen-europese-prijs-in-ontvangst-nemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/metropolitische-kliniek-van-hellinikon-wil-geen-europese-prijs-in-ontvangst-nemen\/","title":{"rendered":"Metropolitische Kliniek van Hellinikon wil geen Europese prijs in ontvangst nemen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/?p=10689#sthash.bpvI2HBo.dpbs\" target=\"_blank\">Ruim een jaar geleden<\/a> schreef ik hier dat de sluiting dreigde voor de <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mkiellinikou.org\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\">Metropolitische Kliniek van Hellinikon (MKIE)<\/a>, een vrijwilligerskliniek onder leiding van hartchirug Georgios Vichas, die afgelopen januari nog op de verkiezingslijst van SYRIZA stond (in september was hij daar niet meer te bespeuren). U kent de kliniek wellicht ook van mijn boek, waar ik een hoofdstuk wijdde aan het initiatief. De kliniek is ondertussen nog steeds open en het initiatief van Vichas werd in Europa geprezen. In die mate zelfs dat de Europese Commissie op 10 september 2015 besloot om MKIE een prijs te geven: de prijs van Europese burger van 2015.<\/p>\n<p>De kliniek weigerde de prijs in ontvangst te nemen: de politiek die wordt opgelegd door diezelfde Europese Commissie, als onderdeel van de trojka, heeft er voor gezorgd dat er op dit moment 3 miljoen Grieken geen ziekteverzekering meer hebben, aldus de woordvoerder van MKIE. Als antwoord op de &#8220;eer&#8221; die de kliniek kreeg, werd het volgende antwoord aan de Europese Commissie gestuurd:<\/p>\n<p>Op basis van het instituut Prolepsis (van de stichting Stavros Niarchos &#8211; overleden reder en oligarch), heeft de verarming van de Griekse bevolking geleid tot het volgende:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>6 op 10 leerlingen in de scholen van Athene hebben onzekerheid of ze eten zullen hebben of niet.<\/li>\n<li>61% van de leerlingen hebben een ouder die werkloos is, 17% komt uit een gezin waar niemand werk heeft.<\/li>\n<li>11% van de kinderen heeft geen ziekteverzekering, en 7% heeft ooit meer dan een week zonder elektriciteit gezeten in 2014, terwijl 3% nog steeds in een huis zonder stroom zit.<\/li>\n<li>406 scholen in heel Griekenland hebben voedselhulp gekregen in 2014 om hun 61.876 leerlingen eten te geven.<\/li>\n<li>1.053 scholen hebben een aanvraag gedaan om dit schooljaar via het programma &#8220;Dioatrofi&#8221; van het instituut Prolepsis voedselhulp te krijgen voor 152.397 leerlingen, terwijl op dit moment slechts 15.520 leerlingen in 150 scholen die hulp krijgen.<\/li>\n<li>Ouders hebben over heel Griekenland 42.727 enquetes in 23 prefecturen in het hele land waaruit blijkt dat 54% van de gezinnen in voedselonzekerheid leeft, en waar 21% honger heeft.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Op basis van studies van het Bureau van de Rijksbegroting van het Griekse parlement, komen de volgende cijfers naar voren:<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>3,8 miljoen Grieken hangen rond de armoedegrens die op dit moment ligt op 432 euro per maand per persoon).<\/li>\n<li>2,5 miljoen Grieken leven onder de armoedegrens (233 euro per maand per persoon, wat gelijk staat aan extreme armoede).<\/li>\n<li>wat betekent dat 58% van de Grieken, of 6,3 miljoen mensen, rond of onder de armoedegrens leven.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hier ziet u de video waarin de MKIE de prijs weigert:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GuxRTb-Swlg\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Overigens is de Metropolitische Kliniek van Hellinikon (MKIE) niet het enige Griekse initiatief dat de prijs kreeg aangeboden van de Europese Commissie. Ook Konstantinos Polychronopoulos, ofwel \u00ce\u0178 \u00ce\u2020\u00ce\u00bb\u00ce\u00bb\u00ce\u00bf\u00cf\u201a \u00ce\u2020\u00ce\u00bd\u00ce\u00b8\u00cf\u0081\u00cf\u2030\u00cf\u20ac\u00ce\u00bf\u00cf\u201a, de andere mens, die ik ook in mijn boek opvoer, stond op de lijst van Brussel. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avgi.gr\/article\/5847733\/koinoniki-kouzina-o-allos-anthropos-den-dexomaste-mia-europi-tou-kanibalismou\" target=\"_blank\">Ook Konstantinos heeft de prijs afgewezen<\/a> om net dezelfde redenen. Ook hij ziet het orgaan dat hem de prijs wil uitreiken, als de oorzaak waarom hij doet wat hij doet.<\/p>\n<p>Of men daar in Brussel van heeft wakker gelegen, weet ik niet. De afgevaardigden van de kliniek hadden de prijsuitreiking graag gebruikt om hun standpunten duidelijk te maken, maar gezien MKIE de prijs weigert, zal dat niet gebeuren. Sylvie Guillaume, ondervoorzitter van het Europese Parlement, wil de prijsuitreiking gebruiken om de genomineerden in de bloemetjes te zetten, en wil er geen andere agenda mee dienen. Wat dan weer leidde tot een boze reactie van de persverantwoordelijke van de kliniek, die ik hieronder in zijn totaliteit weergeef. Aan u om er conclusies uit te trekken, mocht u dat nodig vinden.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_20941\">From: Christos Sideris &lt;christos.sideris@gmail.com&gt;<br \/>\nDate: 10 October 2015 at 21:06<br \/>\nSubject: Re: Your decision to refuse the European Citizen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prize<br \/>\nTo: sylvie.guillaume@europarl.europa.eu<br \/>\nCc: DGCOMM-Citizen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prize &lt;CitizensPrize@europarl.europa.eu&gt;, \u00ce\u0153\u00ce\u00b7\u00cf\u201e\u00cf\u0081\u00ce\u00bf\u00cf\u20ac\u00ce\u00bf\u00ce\u00bb\u00ce\u00b9\u00cf\u201e\u00ce\u00b9\u00ce\u00ba\u00cf\u0152 \u00ce\u0161\u00ce\u00bf\u00ce\u00b9\u00ce\u00bd\u00cf\u2030\u00ce\u00bd\u00ce\u00b9\u00ce\u00ba\u00cf\u0152 \u00ce\u2122\u00ce\u00b1\u00cf\u201e\u00cf\u0081\u00ce\u00b5\u00ce\u00af\u00ce\u00bf \u00ce\u2022\u00ce\u00bb\u00ce\u00bb\u00ce\u00b7\u00ce\u00bd\u00ce\u00b9\u00ce\u00ba\u00ce\u00bf\u00cf\u008d &lt;mkiellinikou@gmail.com&gt;<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_20816\">Dear Ms. Sylvie Guillaume,<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_20686\">Thank you for your email informing us that due to our refusal to accept the European Citizen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Award, we will not be allowed to take part in the event in Brussels, simply because as you say in your email \u00c2\u00abThe event and the ceremony is a special occasion, intended to honor all the winners (47 this year) and should not be taken over for another purpose.\u00c2\u00bb.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_20687\">This other purpose that you mention obviously has to do with the reasons why we have refused the award in the first place and we can only assume that you do not want them to be known to the rest of the participants at the ceremony.\u00c2\u00a0 It is indeed ironic, since you happen to be a Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rights activist and especially because of your political background you should have been given a lot of insight into the struggle of the most vulnerable parts of our society to survive, that you of all are denying our right to express our opposition to the neoliberal policies which are applied in our country since 2010.\u00c2\u00a0 It is these neoliberal policies which have created the circumstances that have led 3 million Greek people being cut off from any kind of health care, driving a lot of them into total despair and in many cases death and even pregnant women having their babies kept as collateral by public hospitals until they had money to pay (BBC article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/magazine-18073793\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/magazine-18073793<\/a>). It is because of these hard and cruel policies, that our community clinic- as well as 40 more on a national level \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have been created in the past 4 years.<br \/>\nThe facts which you do not want to be heard on the 14-15th of October in Brussels are the ones mentioned in our press release titled Metropolitan Community Clinic of Elliniko rejects the European Parliament Prize where we explain why we have rejected the award, you can read it here below:<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_21049\">+++<\/p>\n<p>\u00c2\u00abThe European Parliament has taken the decision to grant us the Prize of The European Citizen for 2015, as a symbol of recognition for our four year struggle\u00c2\u00a0 for a fairer society for\u00c2\u00a0 the unemployed \u00e2\u20ac\u201c uninsured people that have been neglected by the Greek state during the Greek crisis. This struggle is for\u00c2\u00a0 the three million people in Greece without social security, without employment\u00c2\u00a0 and in utter poverty,\u00c2\u00a0 as a result of\u00c2\u00a0 the politics of austerity being imposed by the IMF together with the European Central Bank and the European Union.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_21050\">For us and for the most of the Greek people, Europe is our home. A home full of people of understanding and\u00c2\u00a0 solidarity. This is the Europe that we believe in and wish for.\u00c2\u00a0 Much to our regret,\u00c2\u00a0 we\u00c2\u00a0 come across a Europe lost in bureaucratic cogwheels and banking interests.\u00c2\u00a0 Much to our dismay, we see that Europe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top priority is to find billions of Euro for private banking while, at the same time, a fifty per cent budget cut\u00c2\u00a0 is being imposed on Greek Health Care System, in relation to year 2009.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_21051\">According to Prolepsis Institution Data, the massive impoverishment of a large portion of the Greek people led to:<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a06 out of 10 students in 64 schools of Athens have urgent nutritional needs<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a061 per cent of students in 64 schools have one unemployed parent whereas 17 per cent of the families, have\u00c2\u00a0 no working parent at all.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a011 per cent of the students are uninsured and 7 per cent of them, have lived for a week without electricity during 2014.\u00c2\u00a0 3 per cent lived in a house with no electricity whatsoever.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0406 schools in Greece received financial aid in order to fulfill basic nutritional needs for 61,876 students.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0This year 1,053 schools have applied for a food aid program called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nutrition\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so that 152,937 students can be covered for their basic nutritional needs. To date only 15,520 students have been approved.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a042,727 questionnaires have been filled-in by parents to 23 prefectures in the country, and 54 per cent of the families need food aid.\u00c2\u00a0 21 per cent live in hunger.<\/p>\n<p>Based on a Study of The Budget Office of the Greek Parliament :<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a03,8 million Greeks live very close to the poverty level (432 euro per person)<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a02,5 million Greeks live under poverty level (233 euro per person, per month, which means extreme poverty).\u00c2\u00a0 These data mean that 6,3 million Greeks, ( 58 % of the population,\u00c2\u00a0 live close to or under the poverty level.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_21052\">The Europe that wants to grant us this award doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem overly concerned by this nor by the thousands of deaths of our fellow uninsured citizens, the number of whom will amount to an avalanche very soon since new budget reductions are on the way,\u00c2\u00a0 as a result of the Memorandum agreement,\u00c2\u00a0 most recently signed by the government that cuts a furthers 933 million Euro for the Greek Health Care System.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_20970\">For us it would be utterly hypocritical, to receive such a prize when Europe pretends not to see the undernourished\u00c2\u00a0 babies, the uninsured\u00c2\u00a0 cancer patients\u00c2\u00a0 that end up dead,\u00c2\u00a0 the stories of famished families,\u00c2\u00a0 the people that live without food, water, electricity and food for another year.<br \/>\nOur representative and co-founder,\u00c2\u00a0 George Vichas\u00c2\u00a0 says : \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The thousands of uninsured patients, the dead and the living, stand amongst us, and look us in the eye. And their look, kept on us,\u00c2\u00a0 will not allow us to receive this prize\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_20995\">We do not turn our back to Europe or to the European people who have shown great solidarity. We feel compelled to turn our back to all the institutions and their politicians, who treat people as numbers in accounting files, the European Parliament included.\u00c2\u00a0 This attitude is a shame on the European civilization and has to stop immediately. When that day comes, we would be most pleased to receive this award.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_21053\">Today at the Greek office of the European parliament we have tried to explain, in detail what living in Greece without social security means.\u00c2\u00a0 We cannot accept this award because our patients continue to live on or under the poverty line,\u00c2\u00a0 and with every indication that the situation will worsen.\u00c2\u00a0 During our next visit to Brussels we will attempt a public awareness campaign regarding the Memorandum and the austerity politics, imposed in Greece.\u00c2\u00a0 It is of utmost importance that this award will only be carrying across a message an urgent need for a more humane attitude of greater solidarity amongst\u00c2\u00a0 the\u00c2\u00a0 European citizens.\u00c2\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>+++<\/p>\n<p>These are the facts Ms. Guillaume that you and your colleagues do not want to be publicly known.\u00c2\u00a0 It is because of these kind of attitudes that we turn our backs on you and we do not want to receive this prize.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_21054\">We do hope that your rejection of our attendance at the ceremony is picked up by French journalists and your derogatory attitude towards us \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the 300 volunteers that have offered free primary health care, medicines and baby food on more than 46,000 occasions in 4 years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c gets known to the French people.<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_21055\">Best regards,<\/p>\n<p id=\"yui_3_16_0_1_1444668671231_20994\">Christos Sideris<br \/>\ncommunications officer of the Metropolitan Community Clinic at Elliniko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ruim een jaar geleden schreef ik hier dat de sluiting dreigde voor de Metropolitische Kliniek van Hellinikon (MKIE), een vrijwilligerskliniek onder leiding van hartchirug Georgios Vichas, die afgelopen januari nog op de verkiezingslijst van SYRIZA stond (in september was hij daar niet meer te bespeuren). U kent de kliniek wellicht ook van mijn boek, waar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,3],"tags":[256,423,224],"class_list":["post-11831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dagelijks-leven","category-nieuws","tag-gezondheidszorg","tag-sociale-zekerheid","tag-solidariteit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11833,"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11831\/revisions\/11833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btersago.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}