00:00In Yanouli, just outside Larissa, in central Greece, a local health clinic helps patients get better access to health care.
00:11It's a place where you can see what you need.
00:15I think it's closer to doctors.
00:25Across the European Union, health care is meant to be a right, not a privilege.
00:29But for many, getting the care they need is still a struggle.
00:32In Greece, a new approach is helping bridge that divide.
00:45Vasiliki is a former caregiver and municipal employee.
00:49For years, she has been struggling with several health issues, including diabetes.
00:54I suffer many diseases, mainly in the night and put me in a coma.
01:00This is very difficult because the last five years I have been alone.
01:04Every night, I said, I will wake up in the morning.
01:07I live here for 19 years with the idea of death.
01:12I will wake up in the morning.
01:14At 48 and unemployed, Vasiliki has no private insurance and depends on public health care, which can be challenging.
01:21A year ago, she began visiting this local health unit in Yanouli.
01:26It's a great deal.
01:27We're here.
01:28We're here.
01:29We're here, we're here.
01:30We're here, we're here.
01:31We're here.
01:32We're here, and we're here.
01:33We're here.
01:34And I'm feeling like.
01:35I'm feeling like.
01:36Across Greece, 127 local health units, known as TOMI, have been set up to bring healthcare
01:43closer to disadvantaged communities.
01:46Since 2019, this Yanouli unit has been treating around 100 patients a day, focusing on the poor, the uninsured, the elderly, and those with chronic illnesses.
01:56The local health units were created in Greece to be able to treat large hospitals.
02:03There is a dialogue between people who go to the hospital.
02:07First, they come to a hospital, a primary area of the hospital.
02:13And there is a hospital.
02:14And there is a hospital.
02:15If the hospital should be in hospital or not.
02:19So, there is a hospital.
02:22There is a hospital.
02:27Between 2017 and 2027, TOMI units are receiving 202.5 million euros from the European Social Fund Plus.
02:36This funding supports key health services for the entire community, including vaccination campaigns for undocumented migrants.
02:44Here, in our office, working as a personal nurse, we don't feel that we can only help the patients with mental health issues.
02:56We are close to anything that we need in our daily lives and other mental health problems.
03:06We want to feel close to them. We want to feel like a family.
03:11We are open to talk to us about whatever issue they want and they need.
03:18We are close to them to identify any problem that we need.
03:22From 2021 to 2027, the EU and its member countries are spending 2.4 billion euros to help make healthcare and essential services accessible to all.
03:34A strategy welcomed by this Brussels-based expert on health inequality.
03:39Health inequality means that health is very much related to social disadvantage.
03:45So many people still face obstacles to achieving good health and these obstacles are related to poverty, to social exclusion, to discrimination.
03:55And that then affects also how people are using services.
03:58We see that the commercialisation of healthcare risks widening health inequalities.
04:05And certainly, and that was also a nice report that was being published by the European Commission,
04:10that demonstrates that health insurance and coverage of healthcare expenditures is as important as, for example, unemployment benefits.
04:22So it's really very important for our social model to make sure that the access to health services is covered adequately for vulnerable people.
04:37Across Europe, the COVID pandemic has reinforced the idea that healthcare must be a top priority in the EU and that everyone deserves equal access.
04:46The healthcare approach here in central Greece is not just treating patients.
04:50It's giving people confidence, strengthening communities and making society a little more equal.
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