George Patoulis to OT.gr – Emphasis on prevention and cooperation

The Regional Governor of Attica, George Patoulis, speaking at the stand of OT at the Thessaloniki International Fair said that he expects the government to settle the role and the responsibilities of the local authority, but also the need of combining the central directorate of civil protection with the civil protection of the decentralized administration and voluntary groups for dealing with fires.

“The region can do a lot. But when the resources are not up to you, if the employees you are hiring want just a signature from you, if in order to realize the projects you have to ask so or you need to have somebody else to do them for you, this is something to change. To say that the governors are a small government or a small group of prime ministers, new conditions are needed “, said Mr. Patoulis, according to whom “The decentralization is the belief of the current government. A new legal framework must be created and I am sure the government will do so.”

He also spoke about the need to combine the central directorate of civil protection with the civil protection of regions, municipalities, associations, volunteer groups, so that this network manages to detect and extinguish fires faster.

He added that the 112 is an important legacy, as, as he said, “the positive thing about Varybobi is that with the 112 in full operation a lot of lives were saved fire and the possibility of evacuation was done with high precision. “We can improve things, but we have seen in practice that lives have been saved.”

Regarding the pandemic

On the front of the pandemic, the governor of Attica stressed that “as long as we do not shield society with vaccination, which science has found and the state has provided for free, we are creating a strong substrate for mutations.”

For his part, he spoke of the need to decentralize actions, as he characteristically said, noting that the new political leadership of the Ministry of Health is convinced of this. As he explained, “we must start convincing the citizens door-to-door, through the regional structures”.

“We have to move away from the perception that everything starts in hospitals. “Everything starts with prevention,” he stressed.

Regarding the vaccination of doctors, Mr. Patoulis stated that 93% of them have been vaccinated so far. He stressed, however, that “in any case the unvaccinated are a small percentage that wrongly exists.  He added, in fact, that 3-4 such cases are already in the process of disciplinary investigation by the medical association.

Finally, Mr. Patoulis revealed that he will again be a candidate for the next regional elections. “Our vision is to remake the Attica region, but this is something that cannot be done in one term” he added.