Tweet
Though the global slowdown hasn't hit Greece with full force, years of living beyond its means have left the government with towering debt
For 33 years now, Dionisis Sargentis, 58, has been selling medical and orthopedic supplies to hospitals, products like screws and clips for damaged vertebrae or broken joints, implants, and surgical instruments. He started out as a one-man business. Today he has 13 employees and annual sales of nearly €7 million ($9.3 million).
One would think that his line of business would be recession-proof, given that there is always a need for medical supplies and his regular customers include major public hospitals in Athens.
And yet Sargentis is currently on the verge of going out of business. "I love my work," he says, "but the business is no longer worth it." For four-and-a-half years now, the public hospitals haven't paid him for the supplies he has delivered. At the moment they owe him somewhere around €4.5 million—more than half his company's annual sales.
Now he's fed up with waiting. Together with a number of other hospital suppliers he drove up in front of the General Hospital of Attica (KAT), which has the largest orthopedic department in Athens. But instead of delivering new supplies, he removed existing stocks from the clinic's storerooms. "We're only repossessing what belongs to us," he said. "They were just on loan." Sargentis and his fellow hospital suppliers are hoping that the Greek government will get the message and finally pay up.
As of Dec. 31 last year, the Greek government owed the 75 member companies of the Greek association of medical equipment suppliers, which Sargentis is president of, almost exactly €800 million. An entire sector of the economy is on the brink of ruin. "Everyone has their backs against the wall," he said.
There is a systemic reason for this. In Greece, hospital suppliers sell their goods to clinics on what is virtually a commission basis. The clinics pay only for what they use and in most cases only after a considerable time lag. Two to two-and-a-half years are considered normal waiting times. The suppliers take that into account in their planning. The orders made by the hospitals serve the companies as security for bank loans they take out to pay salaries and to place new orders with manufacturers. This is the way the business works—or rather, this is the way it used to work.
Read more...
Cheers
Marc
For 33 years now, Dionisis Sargentis, 58, has been selling medical and orthopedic supplies to hospitals, products like screws and clips for damaged vertebrae or broken joints, implants, and surgical instruments. He started out as a one-man business. Today he has 13 employees and annual sales of nearly €7 million ($9.3 million).
One would think that his line of business would be recession-proof, given that there is always a need for medical supplies and his regular customers include major public hospitals in Athens.
And yet Sargentis is currently on the verge of going out of business. "I love my work," he says, "but the business is no longer worth it." For four-and-a-half years now, the public hospitals haven't paid him for the supplies he has delivered. At the moment they owe him somewhere around €4.5 million—more than half his company's annual sales.
Now he's fed up with waiting. Together with a number of other hospital suppliers he drove up in front of the General Hospital of Attica (KAT), which has the largest orthopedic department in Athens. But instead of delivering new supplies, he removed existing stocks from the clinic's storerooms. "We're only repossessing what belongs to us," he said. "They were just on loan." Sargentis and his fellow hospital suppliers are hoping that the Greek government will get the message and finally pay up.
As of Dec. 31 last year, the Greek government owed the 75 member companies of the Greek association of medical equipment suppliers, which Sargentis is president of, almost exactly €800 million. An entire sector of the economy is on the brink of ruin. "Everyone has their backs against the wall," he said.
There is a systemic reason for this. In Greece, hospital suppliers sell their goods to clinics on what is virtually a commission basis. The clinics pay only for what they use and in most cases only after a considerable time lag. Two to two-and-a-half years are considered normal waiting times. The suppliers take that into account in their planning. The orders made by the hospitals serve the companies as security for bank loans they take out to pay salaries and to place new orders with manufacturers. This is the way the business works—or rather, this is the way it used to work.
Read more...
Cheers
Marc
Comment