Giannis Albanis on a country without medication

The crisis in Greece is affecting the country's healthcare system. Many pharmacies are only selling medications for cash. As of this Wednesday cancer patients who cannot afford to pay cash in advance are to receive their medication once again. Blogger Giannis Albanis is amazed at the third-world conditions in his country and mourns the lost Europe of his parents' generation: "The plight of the cancer patients is irrefutable proof that Nigeria (the country Madame Lagarde feels so much pity for) is not somewhere far away but here in our very own country, within the Eurozone. … If for our parents Europe meant prosperity, democracy and the welfare state and Nigeria represented poverty, corruption and authoritarianism, we must now admit that things have changed dramatically for our generation. Here there is misery, corruption and authoritarianism while elsewhere there is a social welfare state and democracy - where, precisely, we don't know. A country where there is no medication for cancer patients does not belong in Europe, certainly not the fantastic Europe of our parents. Greece in 2012 belongs to a different Europe: the continent of the EU and the IMF, that has been destroyed by the markets." 

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