Today, Monday 5 July 2021, the Minister of National Defence Mr. Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos visited 251 General Air Force Hospital to inaugurate the new Intensive Care Unit.
The ceremony was attended by the Deputy Minister of National Defence Mr. Alkiviadis Stefanis, HNDGS Chief General Konstantinos Floros and HAFGS Chief Lieutenant General Georgios Blioumis.
Extensive modernization works of the infrastructures rendered nine ICU beds, and three negative pressure ones.
The Minister of National Defence addressed the following:
“Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am extremely happy to be here today to inaugurate the upgraded capabilities in the overall infrastructure of this specific Hospital. The 9 plus 3 renovated beds in the Intensive Care Unit, are evidently an important addition to the capabilities of the 251 General Air Force Hospital.
251 General Air Force Hospital has been in the first line of counter-attack in the battle against the pandemic and bore a greater burden than it could handle when it became an on duty unit in the framework of the National Health System.
The Personnel and the Command have delivered successful results and are worth being congratulated upon. With very few capabilities, since personnel were assigned to the vaccination centres and with added pressure exerted from the National Health System to incorporate its assets, not to mention the architecture of a military hospital which is different to the architecture of a unit incorporated in the National Health System, despite all this,251 General Air Force Hospital has delivered results.
We need to acknowledge this and congratulate the personnel on the manner it sided with the national effort and accomplished its difficult mission. All are worth being congratulated on, and on top of them the personnel who constructed the ICU beds.
This addition could also work as a reminder. The risk of the pandemic is still here with us, it is still evolving. If we don’t tackle it with our available weapons we will be faced with more waves, the fourth one will hit the country and its population with mathematical precision if we don’t proceed with all necessary adjustments.
So, may I “knock on wood”, may these beds never be used for “Covid” patients of the new pandemic wave. During the past waves we didn’t have the‘”weapon” of vaccination to tackle the situation. We all need to think what is to be done with that.
Allow me to add one more comment: extra renovated beds in hospital ICUs with personnel who hasn’t been vaccinated is one step forward and two steps backwards. We are not making much progress by adding ICUs which will probably accommodate, god forbid, people hit by the virus because they didn’t use the weapon available now but bot before. Now we have the weapon so let’s use it. Let’s not be pessimistic.
I was out of Athens for a week, attending a plethora of events in Northern Greece. I need to remark that there is a relative laxity while the danger lingers on. We all need to think at individual level for the benefit of the whole of society, being reminded that the risks of the pandemic are still here with us.
As I said before, 251 General Air Force Hospital has really delivered amidst dire conditions since it lacked the personnel needed to deal with the extra pressure. This proves the quality of the personnel and its Command, and that the correct use of this quality along with professionalism and high morale delivers results.
We need to congratulate all those who delivered these results, all of you, the doctors, the nurses, and of course your Command.
I do wish that this hospital, or any other military hospital will never have to deal with such pressure ever again, and this is up to us.
We will continue along the road we have paved, to be serving this multi-faceted situation: we will continue to reinforce our Armed Forces infrastructures at all levels, and of course at health level. And simultaneously we will be taking care of our personnel. These capabilities have an end user, the one who benefits is the personnel of the Air Force.
On behalf of the Political Leadership of the Ministry I would like to thank you for your effort. May these ICU beds never be used to treat people who could have vaccinated but didn’t do so.
Congratulations to all contributors” .
