Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-04-29

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] EU Commissioner for Health: Reforms are necessary to avoid collapse of health system

[02] Greek antiquities travel to US and Canadian museums

[01] EU Commissioner for Health: Reforms are necessary to avoid collapse of health system

Tonio Borg, who is visiting Athens to participate in a EU Health ministers informal meeting, noted that before the crisis "the need for reforms was visible, but after the crisis it became urgent."

He also explained that the problem is not only Greek, but reforms should be implemented in other countries' health systems so as to adjust to the new situation and avoid problems in the future.

"I can tell you the positive and the negative aspects of what has happened in Greece. There was an improvement in the reduction of pharmaceutical expenditure. Greece spent almost 2 pct of the GDP for medicine. This has changed," Borg said adding that the European Commission is not yet satisfied with the healthcare coverage of the people in Greece because the reforms, as he said, should also take into consideration the social parameters.

"The uninsured apparently need additional protection measures," he noted adding that the patients' insurance coverage remains one of the targets.

"If the crisis led to a better coverage for the citizens in the future, let's stick to the positive aspect of the crisis and not to the crisis itself. We can't talk about healthcare without a stable health system," Borg said and explained that "without reforms, most of the European health systems will collapse. For that reason, the reduction of expenses was necessary and not only because we were ordered by the troika."

Referring to health policy on migrants, Borg said: "What we are trying to do is to set guidelines. To define when and which migrants should undergo medical examination based on the country of their origin. We do not see migrants as disease vectors, but we must ensure that some diseases of the past will not appear again".

[02] Greek antiquities travel to US and Canadian museums

The shipwreck, named after the southern Greek island off the Peloponnese, was discovered over a century ago and yielded bronze statues and what is considered the world's earliest computing mechanism. All objects date between the 4th and 1st centuries BC.

Culture and Sports Minister Panos Panagiotopoulos met with the National Gallery's director recently to agree on the exhibition, which is hoped to be the first after the renovation of part of the museum.

The National Gallery recently hosted the "Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections" exhibit, with the Culture ministry and Benaki Museum. It is currently on show at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles until August 25. Panagiotopoulos said a section of this exhibit will be then shown at Chicago's Art Institute until the end of the year.

Ottawa will host the exhibit "The Greeks: From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great" as of December 14. In June 2015 it will travel to Montreal, in December 2015 to Chicago's Field Museum and in spring 2016 to National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC.

"Cultural extroversion is a basic pillar of our policy," Panagiotopoulos said, "because it builds Greece's public image anew, internationally. It shows up our cultural heritage and our national rights, responding to ridiculous, unhistorically proven propaganda, such as that used by Skopje. It also attracts visitors from throughout the world."

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