Surgeons from the island of Rhodes will travel to Kalymnos on August 17 to perform 20 hip and knee replacement surgeries for patients on a waiting list, the Health Ministry said.
The surgical team from the orthopedic clinic at Rhodes Hospital, led by director Michalis Sokorelos, will carry out the operations for patients registered on the clinic’s waiting list, which serves the Dodecanese islands and much of Greece.
Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis called it a pilot program for a new, broader approach within the national health system. “The goal is for us to reach the areas that have a need. We don’t want to make people suffer,” he said, adding that the ministry hopes to expand such traveling surgical teams nationwide as of September.
A similar mission to Kalymnos took place in 2023, when newly renovated operating rooms on the island first allowed such procedures locally.
