NEW GENERAL HOSPITAL (23 May 2008)

A new 22-bed hospital with an area of nearly 3,000 square meters and fully up-top-date equipment is to replace the existing Trifillion hospital in Potamos which has served the island for many years. The foundation stone was laid today near the monastery of Agios Theodoros by the minister of health and social security, Dimitris Avramopoulos, in the presence of the Bishop of Kythera, the mayor and municipal councillors, two members of parliament and a host of other guests and officials. The cost of the project, 80% funded by the European Union, comes to about six million euros, and construction is (optimistically) due to be completed in fourteen months’ time.

The 14-stremma site (three-and-a-half acres) of the new hospital is near the monastery of Agios Theodoros, on the main road between Potamos and Aroniadika. The site was a gift from the church of Kythera, while the entire cost of the necessary preliminary studies of over 150,000 euros was born by the Trifillion Foundation, which has of course been responsible for the foundation and (for most of its history) the running of the existing hospital. The role of the foundation and of its president, Professor Georgios Kassimatis, in promoting and pursuing the project through the tortuous labyrinths of Greek bureaucracy was acknowledged by the minister himself to have been “fundamental”. In honour of the original donors, the new hospital will be officially known as the Trifillion General Hospital.

John Stathatos