Για την Αμαλία (For Amalia)

“Patients have the right to be respected and preserve their dignity”

(Aritcle 47 of Greek Law 2071/1992)

“Guys, let the quacks become the exception and not the norm...”

(Amalia Kalyvinou 1977-2007)

Since she was 8, Amalia started to be in pain. Despite her frequent visits to doctors and hospital admissions, no one managed to diagnose the benign neurinoma at her leg. Seventeen years later, Amalia was told that the neurinoma had developed into a malignant neoplasm.

For the following 5 years, Amalia had to struggle not only against cancer, but also against a diseased National Health System [Ethiniko Sistima Igias, ESI; the acronym is pronounced and spelled as [esí], a word that means ‘you’ (2nd sg) in the language] that has been choosing to ignore the "fakelakia" issue [the term from Greek is deliberately left untranslated. This term basically stands for bribery. For more information on this Greek “innovation” please follow this link] and keep on procrastinating through irrational bureaucratic practices. On top of the radiotherapy and chemotherapy, Amalia had to face financial exploitation by doctors who stood against rather than by her side. On top of her pain, she had to cope with the greed of private clinics [in general, private clinics in Greece are free to charge their own rates for medical services, rates often very high] and the grueling queues of social insurance institutions, just to obtain a required seal [a form of verification so that an often poor financial compensation for the patient can be approved].

Amalia passed away on Friday, May 25 2007. She was only 30 years old.

Before she died, she managed to document her experience and share it with the rest of us though her blog. In her website (http://fakellaki.blogspot.com) [in Greek, unfortunately] this young philologist [“philology” for those of you not familiar with the term is the study of literature and language. Having a BA in Philology myself, gives me another reason to be sympathetic to her story] named one by one the doctors she had to bribe, praising alongside the ones who chose to honor the Hippocratic Oath. Her testimony moved thousands of people who stood by her side in her unequal struggle with the disease until the very end.

“Amalia’s goal was to tell her story in order to stir up as many people and as many consciences possible. Primarily, she wanted to show there are ways to resist not only to the without control authority of cold-hearted and unconscionable doctors, [many doctors in Greece, are often rude towards their patients. They rarely disclose any detailed information about the diagnosis and the nature of treatment (although they are required to do so by law), since they view such questions as an attack to their expertise] but to the bureaucrats of the National Health System as well.”

Dikaia Tsavari and Georgia Kalyvinou (Amalias’s sister and mother)

According to Article 77 of Greek Law 2071/1992:

“Bribery [i.e., fakelaki] and, especially the acceptance of fees or any other sort of property for any medical services offered”

is considered a disciplinary offence for doctors working under the jurisdiction of the National Health System.
Amalia Kalyvinou struggled for things taken for granted in a modern European country. Unfortunately, this is not the case for Greece. Following the efforts Amalia initiated, we protest in public and we demand:

• IMMEDIATE MEASURES TO BE TAKEN BY THE STATE TO PUT AN END TO THE FAKELAKIA AND THE INEQUITY THEY BRING TO THE TREATMENT OF PATIENTS


• THE GOVERNMENT TO DEVELOP MORE FLEXIBLE RESPONSES TO PATIENT NEEDS SO THAT WE WILL NOT MOURN AGAIN FOR VICTIMS OF LINGERING BUREAUCRATIC PRACTICES


• THE INTERACTION OF PHAMACEUTICAL COMPANIES AND THE MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT TO BE PUT UNDER A STRICTER CONTROL


• THE GOVERNMENT MAKE THE MOST OF THE UNDER-UTILIZED HOSPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE [there are public hospitals with modern equipment worth of thousands of Euros literally still in boxes because the required operating personnel is not yet hired] AND THAT THE CONTINUING EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF ALL THE DOCTORS AND PARAMEDICS OF THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE WILL BE ENSURED


• THE INSTITUTION OF A NATION WIDE ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS SYSTEM TO SPEED UP PROMPT DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT

LET US PUT AN END TO THE HYPOCRITIC BEHAVIOR OF THE ONES WHO GOVERN, PEOPLE WHO OPT FOR DOCTORS BEING BRIBED BY THEIR PATIENTS RATHER THAN BEING PAID A DECENT SALARY BY THE STATE

NO MORE FAKELAKIA

NO MORE BUREAUCRACY

NO MORE MOCKERY

WE ARE ENTITLED TO FREE AND EFFICIENT PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES

Next time you will be asked to give a fakelaki, don’t! Choose to make a donation instead. Amalia’s last wish was to contribute to the under construction Oncological Centre for children. (Elpida Foundation, tel. No. +30210-7757153, e-mail: info@elpida.org, bank accounts: National Bank of Greece, Account No. 080/480898-36, Alphabank Account No. 152-002-002-000-515. Please remember to quote that your donation is “for Amalia”.

INTERNET MOVEMENT OF AMALIA’S FRIENDS

(The text above is a direct translation of the one posted in Greek, and (aside my explanatory comments made in the red) is slightly different than the officially adopted English translation, mainly provided by Gerasimos.)

I will end this post with some words taken from Amalia’s blog: (I kept her formatting; my explanatory comments are again indicated with brackets)

“I have cancer.
I have gone over any type of chemo you can imagine. No effect.My condition was continuously deteriorating. In my chest, somewhere among the numerous tumors, one could see a bit of a lung which I used to barely breathe and, strangely enough, a heart that kept on beating. Near the end of 2006 the doctors of Errikos Dinan [a private clinic named, of course, after Jean Henri Dunant] learned about a drug that can be currently found only abroad and could probably give me some hope.With lots of efforts, after over two months of (potentionaly deadly) bureaucracy, submitting the supporting documents to EOF [Ethnikos Organismos Farmakon, National Drug Agency, something like the U.S FDA] and I.K.A [Idrima Kinonikon Asfaliseon, Social Insurance Foundation, the largest (and most problematic) public social insurance agency in the country] I finally got the mostly-desired approval for the first 3 doses of the drug after…

…naturally, after firstly my doctor, Mr. Klouvas [he is one of the good guys] had to forget his profession for hours and turn into a scribe to prepare a volume of supporting documents needed by the wherever present bureaucrats [Amalia is using a stronger word for “bureaucrat” in Greek which is difficult to translate. The original word used is “kareklokedavros”, which literally translates to chair-centaur] to justify their salary.

…naturally, after Errikos Dinan social service people, Mrs. Hatzaki and Mrs. Tzortzou had to remind the public slackers that my condition could not take any delays

… naturally, after my relatives were racing from one agency to another to submit new “revised” or complementary documents, for example the fact I had sarcoma had to be stated not only at the third line of a document, but at the sixth as well!!! They could not conclude this by themselves, so my parents had to rush to my doctor to turn him again into a scribe of stupidity….”

(post made by Amalia on Thursday March 22, 2007)

"I have suffered from intolerable pain….I have been deprived of numerous pleasures, I have been deprived of entertainment, I have interrupted my studies more than three times, I have been deprived of the carelessness of movement because of the pain itself or the fear of it, I have never played professional volleyball, [one of Amalia’s favorite sports] I have never put on a mini skirt because of the pain-related atrophy [Amalia experienced major pain in her leg, so she did not use it a lot; as a result atrophy kicked in], I have faced the disbelief for my pain from the doctors, I have faced the disbelief for my pain from my parents,….I have felt embarrassment for the appearance of my body, I have faced irrational bureaucracy, I have been a victim of financial exploitation by doctors, I have become a candidate victim of sexual abuse by a doctor,… I have lost my full autonomy [because of the tumor Amalia had her leg amputated]… I avoid being around children, like my beloved nephews, so they will not miss me when I die…I cannot hold a baby in my lap, I have been deprived for a long time, and now permanently, of my great love, dancing, I have heard three times (because of the radiotherapy) the dreadful “crack” a bone makes when it breaks, I have to give comfort to everyone around me when I get the results of a biopsy or other bad results, something I am getting bored of, I have seen numerous of pleasures passing by me, I can’ t scream.

BECAUSE OF YOU, MY GOOD DOCTOR "

(post made by Amalia on Saturday, April 7, 2007)

Ας αναπαύσει ο Θεός την ψυχούλα σου κορίτσι μου και ας σου δώσει την γαλήνη που τόσο πολύ δεν απόλαυσες στο πραγματικά σύντομο περασμά σου απ’ αυτόν τον κόσμο. Αιωνία σου η μνήμη...