National Nurses United

Greek_JulAug 2/9/12 5:14 PM Page 16 from both entrances of the first aid station where the riot police were chucking canisters. One can hit the station's tent wall, starting a fire. Inside, 20 medical volunteers, including registered nurses, doctors, and first aid personnel, struggled to protect and care for 30 to 40 patients with respiratory problems and trauma wounds. For over an hour, they were all trapped: they could not see, they could not breathe. Registered nurse Nikos Manias ran outside to appeal to the police to stop the tear gas attack, but they ignored him. One riot police officer came forward and threw a stun grenade at him. "I was standing on a bench. If I had been on the ground, it would have hit me," said Manias. Shortly after, another officer threw a rock at him. "I was on my knees, begging them to stop the tear gas attacks, but instead the police started throwing many stones at me." No, this is not some Hollywood dramatization of riot police overreacting to an Occupy Wall Street protest. This was modernday Athens, Greece, on June 29, 2011; the second day of a historic, two-day "The riot police general strike that the threw chunks Greek people staged to of marble fight the second round of stones and austerity measures their chemical government passed in canisters at order to receive its secus. I fell down ond loan installment and and then they balance their nation's came from budget on the backs of behind and ordinary citizens. beat my legs Riot police unleashed a with batons. staggering 2,860 tear gas I could not canisters and thousands get up, I could of flash grenades to clear not walk." large crowds of people from central Athens in a five-hour assault which began at 2 p.m. Police typically use around 150 tear gas containers at Greek rallies. While registered nurses, doctors, medics, and other healthcare professionals volunteering with the Occupy Wall Street movement have certainly faced their fair share of danger and police aggression while trying to treat people hurt during protests, marches, and rallies over the past several months, these American confrontations pale in comparison to the violence their counterparts in Greece have endured while trying to care for their own. Since May 2010, the Greek people have staged a series of mass demonstrations, sectoral strikes, and 22 general strikes to fight against the draconian measures their government has enacted in order to appease foreign lenders who provided a €110 billion bailout for the debt-ridden nation. Deep cuts to public and private sector salaries, pensions, jobs, the national healthcare system, as well as a hike in the sales tax to 23 percent, have resulted in chaos, 16 N AT I O N A L N U R S E high unemployment, and an effective dismantling of the public health system. Greece's trade unions and leftist political parties organized the initial opposition, but the protests have transformed into a broad-based people's movement, with millions of Greeks taking to the streets and actions ramping up since spring of this year. In addition to participating in the demonstrations, Greek medical workers, including many registered nurses, doctors, and mental health professionals, volunteered from late May to late July to treat the injured through a medical station erected as part of a protest camp occupying Athens' Syntagma Square. Their medical expertise has been desperately needed. Greek police have been ruthless in response to protestors. The attack on the first aid station was part of a larger assault police launched against peaceful demonstrators in central Athens' Syntagma Square that day. Riot cops clouded the entire plaza in tear gas, beat protestors with batons, threw stun grenades, and even stoned people with marble rocks. Incredibly, police did not consider the first aid station off limits to their violence. W hat is it that greek registered nurses and other medical workers are risking life and limb to defend? How did the situation get this bad? Greek medical providers have been fighting a two-front battle against massive austerity measures imposed on Greece by what is being called a "troika" of foreign lenders: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB), and European Union (EU). On one side, medical activists are trying to preserve Greece's National Health Service (NHS) in the face of debilitating cuts. On the other side, they find themselves under physical assault from the country's increasingly repressive police force. Greece's Pasok government signed the first loan memorandum of €146 billion, about $210 billion U.S. dollars, with the troika in May 2010, which included deep salary and pension cuts. The minimum W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G DECEMBER 2011 OPPOSITE, TOP: PANTELIS SAITAS/EPA/CORBIS T ear gas billowed in

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