National health policy in Greece : regulations or reforms? The Sisyphus myth

Abstract

This paper attempts an evaluation of health care reforms and regulations in Greece. The main findings indicate that the existing Conservative Government has kept but not developed some previous Social-democrats’ major reforms concerning decentralisation and hospital management arrangements. The government also announced new regulations concerning the pharmaceutical sector and the procurement procedures of the national health units. On the other hand, precedent regulations for primary health care were to be postponed and the fundamental financing issue of the system has been neglected. In addition, this paper intends to take parallel account that terms such as globalisation and enlargement are still within the European perspective of the country. Overall, the Greek NHS seems to be developed and enlarged, besides the lack of strong political will to consider reforms and even regulations, into a continuous managerial process, assessment and public dialogue. In this sense, there is a continuing gap between - on the one hand - principles and goals and - on the other hand - rational planning, political issues and implementation process, all resulting in a never-ending reform scenario.