Syros: hospital replies over sworn inquiry

The management of the General Hospital of Syros «Vardakeio and Proio N. Tritzalis» issued a public reply on Monday 17 August 2026 to allegations of «trade union persecution». According to the statement published by Cyclades24, the management rejects the description of persecution and maintains that the sworn administrative inquiry was launched after a public intervention by the president of the staff union who, it says, questioned the scientific competence of trainee doctors at the institution and their ability to practise medicine. The management calls on the Cyclades Medical Association to state publicly whether it shares those views, and says it will continue to support «all employees without any exception».

The dispute began a few days earlier. On 13 August 2026 the hospital’s staff union had alleged, in a statement reported by To Pontiki, the sudden transfer of nineteen employees of the nursing service, the revocation of leave that had already been approved, and the summoning of an employee to explain remarks made at a general meeting. The union also spoke of warnings about services being contracted out, and the following day it alleged that the same tactics were continuing. Its demand is twofold: the immediate annulment of the sworn administrative inquiry and full justification of every administrative decision concerning staff transfers.

The two sides give conflicting accounts of how the case began and TodayGrid is not in a position to confirm which of them corresponds to the facts. The management places the trigger in the statements about trainee doctors; the union links it to an earlier public complaint about understaffing. Neither statement quotes the full text of the disputed remarks, so that they could be assessed independently. A sworn administrative inquiry is a preliminary disciplinary procedure and does not in itself amount to a finding of misconduct. The procedure provides for an official to be appointed to conduct the inquiry, for statements to be taken and for a report to be submitted to the competent disciplinary body, which decides whether proceedings will be brought. Scrutiny of the lawfulness of staff transfers, on the other hand, belongs to the administrative courts and not to disciplinary law.

The case matters beyond the walls of the institution, since the hospital on Syros serves as the referral hospital for the Cyclades and receives cases from the smaller islands, with the workload multiplying in the summer months. Staffing questions have repeatedly troubled the island health system, as in the case of the approvals of medical staff on Naxos reported by TodayGrid in «Naxos: an orthopaedist and a biopathologist approved». The next step is the completion of the inquiry and a position from the 2nd Health Region. More from the island on the Syros page. In the peak months emergency cases rise significantly, while transfers from the smaller islands to Syros are often made by sea or by air and depend on weather conditions. Staffing in medical and nursing personnel has been a constant demand of local bodies for years.