Greek fire

Just eight years ago, when Athens hosted the Olympic Games, the capital celebrated with an orgy of stadiums, hotels  and other infrastructure purchased by what seemed, at the time, to be the fruits of a long economic boom. Today the Helliniko Olympic complex in Athens stands as a monument to this hubris, a decaying white elephant which costs £65 million a year just to maintain. Nearby is one of a handful of new clinics set up to cope with the effects of Greece’s extreme poverty.

Dr Giorgos Vihas, a volunteer cardiologist at the clinic, sometimes cannot believe the problems he’s treating: men and women sick from eating out of bins; five-month-old babies underweight because the parents can’t afford milk. The doctor blames a ‘systematic destruction of the health system’ after the government signed an austerity deal with European Union authorities. He also offers a political diagnosis. ‘The EU medication is worsening the situation. The medical prescription of the bailout leads to a certain death.’ Why certain death? Because, in times gone by, Greece would have defaulted on its loans — as it has done quite often — and its currency would have hit the floor, making its exporters more competitive. But with the euro, the only option is an ‘internal devaluation’. This phrase, a fairly new one, is a euphemism for genuinely savage cuts to public spending, higher taxes and collapsing living standards.

Thanos Karagiannis, one of Dr Vihas’s patients, is a victim of ‘internal devaluation’. Three years ago he was a successful businessman. Now he stays with his 80-year-old mother and lives off her pension. ‘I’m here today simply because I’m very poor and I cannot buy my medicines. There is no future.’ Mr Karagiannis is one of an army of new voters for Syriza, the radical left coalition.