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<\/p>\nElena, a cancer patient, at a clinic in Athens. Her illness long went untreated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
By\u00a0LIZ ALDERMAN<\/a><\/p>\n ATHENS \u2014 As the head of\u00a0Greece<\/a>\u2019s largest oncology department, Dr. Kostas Syrigos thought he had seen everything. But nothing prepared him for Elena, an unemployed woman whose\u00a0breast cancer<\/a>\u00a0had been diagnosed a year before she came to him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At a pharmacy in Athens,\u00a0 patients waited for medicine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n By that time, her\u00a0cancer<\/a>\u00a0had grown to the size of an orange and broken through the skin, leaving a wound that she was draining with paper napkins. \u201cWhen we saw her we were speechless,\u201d said Dr. Syrigos, the chief of oncology at Sotiria General Hospital in central Athens. \u201cEveryone was crying. Things like that are described in textbooks, but you never see them because until now, anybody who got sick in this country could always get help.\u201d<\/p>\n Life in Greece has been turned on its head since the debt crisis took hold. But in few areas has the change been more striking than in health care. Until recently, Greece had a typical European health system, with employers and individuals contributing to a fund that with government assistance financed universal care. People who lost their jobs received health care and unemployment benefits for a year, but were still treated by hospitals if they could not afford to pay even after the benefits expired.<\/p>\n Things changed in July 2011, when Greece signed a supplemental loan agreement with international lenders to ward off financial collapse. Now, as stipulated in the deal,\u00a0 Greeks must pay all costs out of pocket after their benefits expire.<\/p>\n About half of Greece\u2019s 1.2 million long-term unemployed lack\u00a0health insurance<\/a>, a number that is expected to rise sharply in a country with an unemployment rate of 25 percent and a moribund economy, said Savas Robolis, director of the Labor Institute of the General Confederation of Greek Workers. A new $17.5 billion austerity package of budget cuts and tax increases, agreed upon Wednesday with Greece\u2019s international lenders, will make matters only worse, most economists say.<\/p>\n The changes are forcing increasing numbers of people to seek help outside the traditional health care system. Elena, for example, was referred to Dr. Syrigos by doctors in an underground movement that has sprung up here to care for the uninsured. \u201cIn Greece right now, to be unemployed means death,\u201d said Dr. Syrigos, an imposing man with a stern demeanor that grew soft when discussing the plight of cancer patients.<\/p>\n The development is new for Greeks \u2014 and perhaps for Europe, too. \u201cWe are moving to the same situation that the United States has been in, where when you lose your job and you are uninsured, you aren\u2019t covered,\u201d Dr. Syrigos said.<\/p>\n The change is particularly striking in cancer care, with its lengthy and expensive treatments. When cancer is diagnosed among the uninsured, \u201cthe system simply ignores them,\u201d Dr. Syrigos said. He said, \u201cThey can\u2019t access\u00a0chemotherapy<\/a>, surgery or even simple drugs.\u201d<\/p>\nPublished: October 24, 2012<\/h6>\n
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<\/h6>\n<\/div>\nGreece\u2019s Deep Cuts<\/a><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/a><\/div>\nAngelos Tzortzinis for The New York Times<\/h6>\n