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"Give a man a fish and he won't starve for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he won't starve for his entire life."

TIP TO THE ASPIRING NEWSJUNKYS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>WHEN YOU WANT TO KNOW WHATS REALLY GOING ON IN AREAS OF THE WORLD ....WHEN YOU SERIOUSLY DOUBT YOUR GETTING ACTUAL NEWS FROM THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA (PRETTY MUCH ALL THE TIME).............YOU GO TO THEIR NEWSPAPERS.......THE NEWSPAPERS IN THE COUNTRY YOUR WONDERING ABOUT........THERE ARE USUALLY SEVERAL......AND SEVERAL THAT ARE PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH.... IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT WHATS GOING ON OVERSEAS IN SPECIFIC COUNTRYS (BE IT GREECE OR ANYWHERE ELSE) THATS WHERE TO LOOK ........

Doctors react to hospital mergers, plan strike

Doctors at public hospitals are reacting to a Health Ministry draft bill that is slated to be voted in Parliament on February 29, and which introduces cost-cutting measures including the merger of healthcare facilities. Doctors say this will place an impossible burden on smaller hospitals and clinics.

According to the draft law, by the beginning of 2013, Greece’s 132 public healthcare facilities will be whittled down to 82 through the merger process and each new entity will have one budget and one supply system.

Hospital doctors, who on Friday called a 24-hour strike to coincide with Parliament’s vote on the bill, say that the new law will render defunct small hospitals, which often supplement centralized healthcare, especially in remote parts of the country that have limited access to larger institutions.

“The law will basically lead to the closure of departments in small hospitals in order to staff the same departments at the big hospitals with which they have been merged,” Dimitris Varnavas, head of the Federation of Greek Hospital Doctors, told Kathimerini. He cited the closure of the emergency unit in northern Greece’s Ptolemaida to cover staff shortages in Komotini, where the region’s main hospital is located, from February 20-29.

Hospital doctors have also reacted to an announced 17 percent reduction in overtime pay for emergency duty, a measure that will bring savings of 50 million euros to the cash-strapped state.

According to Varnavas, the reduction “means that some doctors, like interns and junior residents, will be receiving less that 5 euros an hour during emergency duty.”

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry’s supply committee has said that it expects to sign contracts with suppliers, who have called an embargo until hospitals pay their outstanding debts, by the end of March.

Committee head Katerina Kastanioti said yesterday that the savings made through the liberalization of the medical supply sector are “like having a check that cannot be cashed.”

The Health Ministry saved an estimated 5.4 million euros in the most recent online competition for contracts for five specific medicines.

ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_16_24/02/2012_4...

BTW..... THE MOST TELLING STORYS I FIND ON THE REAL MOOD OF THE PEOPLE THERE.... ARE IN THE COMMENTARY SECTION......THIS NEWSPAPER HAS SEVERAL WHICH SHOW THE GENERAL MOOD IN GREECE WITH THE EURO BAILOUT PLAN PLACED UPON THEM........GREAT READING AND VERY INFORMATIVE AND POSSIBLY PROPHETIC FOR OUR SIDE OF THE POND

FOR THE COMPUTER CHALLENGED.....................THAT WOULD BE HERE.......
ekathimerini.com/ekathi/comment

sent to me by Kurt...........thanks heh heh

OUR GARDEN IS VERY CONFUSED
THINKS IT'S SPRING
MY WIFE IS NOT LIKING IT BECAUSE
NOW THESE WON'T BLOOM AGAIN THIS YEAR

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION LOVES "AGGRESSIVE REPORTING".........WHEN IT'S ABROAD HEH HEH

Just as he did following the death of New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid in Syria, White House press secretary Jay Carney began his daily briefing by praising the work of Marie Colvin, the Sunday Times reporter who also was killed there on Wednesday.

Carney called their deaths "tragic," and "a reminder of the incredible risks that journalists take ... in order to bring the truth about what is happening in a country like Syria to those of us at home."

But, Obama's press secretary seemed unprepared for a hard line of questioning from ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper, who took issue with the administration's applause of aggressive reporting abroad while trying to silence it at home in the United States.

Here's a partial transcript of their exchange:

TAPPER: The White House keeps praising these journalists who are, who've been killed--

CARNEY: I don't know about "keep." I think--

TAPPER: You've done it, Vice President Biden did it in a statement. How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistleblowers to court? You're--currently I think that you've invoked it the sixth time, and before the Obama administration, it had only been used three times in history. You're--this is the sixth time you're suing a CIA officer for allegedly providing information in 2009 about CIA torture. Certainly that's something that's in the public interest of the United States. The administration is taking this person to court. There just seems to be disconnect here. You want aggressive journalism abroad; you just don't want it in the United States.
CARNEY: Well, I would hesitate to speak to any particular case, for obvious reasons, and I would refer you to the Department of Justice for more on that. I think we absolutely honor and praise the bravery of reporters who are placing themselves in extremely dangerous situations in order to bring a story of oppression and brutality to the world. I think that is commendable, and it's certainly worth noting by us. And as somebody who knew both Anthony and Marie, I particularly appreciate what they did to bring that story to the American people. I--as for other cases, again, without addressing any specific case, I think that there are issues here that involve highly sensitive classified information, and I think that, you know, those are--divulging or to--divulging that kind of information is a serious issue, and it always has been.

TAPPER: So the truth should come out abroad, it shouldn't come out here?

CARNEY: Well, that's not at all what I'm saying, Jake, and you know it's not. Again, I can't--specific--

TAPPER: That's what the Justice Department's doing.

CARNEY: Well, you're making a judgment about a broad array of cases, and I can't address those specifically.
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION LOVES "AGRESSIVE REPORTING" ............ABROAD THAT IS
TAPPER: It's also the judgment that a lot of whistleblowers' organizations and good government groups are making as well.

CARNEY: Not one that I'm going to make.