Athens News Agency: News in English, 06-10-23
CONTENTS
[01] ERT to hold telethon for SAE's Hellinicare
[01] ERT to hold telethon for SAE's Hellinicare
Greece's state-controlled broadcaster ERT will be holding a telethon on
November 18-20 to raise fund's for the Hellenicare medical programme
set up by the World Council of Hellenes Abroad (SAE).
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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