Athens News Agency: News in English, 06-10-23

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

CONTENTS

[01] ERT to hold telethon for SAE's Hellinicare

[01] ERT to hold telethon for SAE's Hellinicare

During a press conference held in Athens on Monday, SAE President Andrew Athens said the telethon would give Greeks the opportunity to participate in Hellenicare and to send a message to the ethnic Greeks scattered in historic but poor communities around the world that they had not been forgotten by Greece and the Greek people.

Cardiologist Kyriakos Kanakis, a member of the Greek diaspora that had been placed in charge of organising the Hellenicare programme stressed that this help was vital to the Greeks of Georgia, describing the situation that he found there on his first visit in 1997.

"I was shocked by what I encountered. The state that our fellow Greeks had come to, as have all the residents of that country, was indescribable. The health care system had collapsed and even finding a simple aspirin was a major issue," he told reporters.

Since 1997, roughly one million patients of all ethnic origins, had benefited from the medical services provided free of charge at the medical centres, clinics and mobile medical units set up by the SAE in the Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Albania, SAE officials said.

Among the services offered were the first open-heart surgeries ever conducted in Georgia, by a team of U.S. surgeons led by Kanakis, while Hellenicare also provided humanitarian aid such as clothing and food in poorer areas. So far, $120 million donated by the Greek and U.S. governments and large non-governmental organisations had been spent on the programme's activities.

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