The health impact of nancial crisis: omens of a Greek tragedy

The so-called Troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank have decided massive bailouts to countries such as Greece, Portugal, the Irish Republic and Cyprus. Greece alone, a country very familiar to the editors of this book, has been awarded an €110bn bailout by the Troika. Of course such debts have to be repaid eventually, and austerity has been seen as a measure to cut down demand for consumer goods and luxuries. This it has undoubtedly done but it has brought in its wake all kinds of social ills.