NHS is 'the heart and soul' of PASOK-KINAL, its leader says, remembering Fofi Gennimata

The National Health System (NHS) is "the heart and soul of our party", PASOK-Movement for Change (KINAL) leader Nikos Androulakis said from Naxos island on Tuesday.

Androulakis spoke of Wednesday's two-year anniversary of the death of party leader Fofi Gennimata, and of the contribution of the late Giorgos Gennimatas (Fofi's father) and of Paraskevas Avgerinos in building the Greek NHS.

He also accused the ruling New Democracy party of "never believing in the NHS," and as a government trying to downgrade it and sell it off to private interests. "It had the opportunity to revive it with Recovery Funds. It did not do it," he said. Greece is among eastern states of the European Union with the lowest public expenditures for health and the highest unmet needs, he asserted, adding that "the rollover of expenditures from the public sector to the Greek people's pockets added yet another burden to Greek households along with the high cost of living and the energy crisis."

New Democracy undermines a basic tenet of NHS, he said, the free and universal access of health services to citizens.