Greek doctors strike against revamp

(ATHENS) - Greek doctors began a four-day strike Monday against an overhaul of health care dictated by the European Union and the IMF to aid the debt-ridden country, which will be voted in parliament this week.

Some 7,000 doctors working for the country's largest social security organisation IKA, which covers 5.3 million Greeks, walked off their jobs, while dozens of doctors staged a sit-in on the grounds of the health ministry.

Athenian doctors will be followed later this week by colleagues in Salonica, Greece's second biggest city after its capital.

The reform, which will be voted in the Greek parliament on Wednesday, aims to reorganise the country's failing health coverage, open up the medical profession and modernise its services, which are often clogged by bureaucracy.

The strikes came as a group of EU and International Monetary Fund experts began an audit of finances that will determine whether Athens will receive the next tranche of a 110-billion-euro ($149-billion) loan package agreed last May.

Greece has so far drawn 38 billion euros of the loan package by the EU, IMF and the European Central Bank, dubbed the troika, that saved it from bankruptcy last year.

The experts will determine whether it will be granted the fourth instalment, worth 15 billion euros.

Pharmacists went on strike Monday as well to protest against their sector's deregulation, also part of austerity measures prescribed by the three backers.