A preliminary inquiry has been launched in Greece, summoning all duty psychiatrists from public hospitals in Attica who have been on call since February 1, 2024. This follows a lawsuit filed by police officers, who allege continuous breach of duty and reckless endangerment through concurrence of offenses.
The inquiry does not target a few isolated doctors but nearly the entire psychiatric staff of public units in the Athens metropolitan area. Considering that hundreds of psychiatrists have been on duty over the 21 months in question, the summons constitutes an unprecedented mass criminal proceeding against National Health System (ESY) scientists.
The police officers filed the lawsuit concerning incidents involving the transport of mentally ill patients, either for involuntary commitment or transfers between facilities in Attica. In these cases, the psychiatrists have been accused of refusing admission or declaring an inability to hospitalize patients due to a lack of bed space.
Reactions: “Criminalization of psychiatry”
The Employees Association of the Dafni Psychiatric Hospital (ESY-PNA Dafni) issued a statement decrying a “groundbreaking incident of blatant state intervention” in the work of doctors.
“The Government, Police, and Prosecutors are intervening in the most brutal way, at a time when the NHS is collapsing and doctors are being made scapegoats,” it was proclaimed. The employees accuse the prosecutors of “criminalizing the practice of psychiatry” and demand immediate intervention from the Ministry of Health. The Hellenic Psychiatric Association (HPS) released a stern announcement, stating:
“We were informed with intense concern about the summoning of all psychiatrists in public clinics in Attica for a preliminary inquiry. Essentially, the entire psychiatric community of the NHS is being summoned. We call on the Ministries of Health, Citizen Protection, and Justice to assume their responsibilities and immediately halt the criminalization of psychiatric practice.”
The HPS emphasized that the lack of beds and understaffing in public psychiatric units is a chronic problem and not a “breach of duty.”
Critical shortages in state mental health facilities
According to data cited by the employees, the availability of beds in public psychiatric facilities in Greece has been reduced to 900, while the private sector beds now exceed 4,000.
As a result, patients face daily waiting periods in police stations, transfers from hospital to hospital, and the mentally ill are often hospitalized on stretchers (overflow beds). This entire case sets a dangerous precedent of doctors being criminally accountable for systemic shortcomings of the National Health System.
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