Greece moves from free to paid afternoon surgeries as recovery‑fund program ends

The Greek Ministry of Health announced that the EU‑backed free‑afternoon‑surgery programme, funded with €41 million from the Recovery and Resilience Fund, concluded on 30 June 2026 after delivering 26,845 free interventions and cutting the waiting list for surgeries longer than four months by 98 %. From 1 July 2026, paid afternoon surgeries will replace the free slots. Patients can now book an assessment, be entered into a unified surgery list and choose either a free morning operation or a paid afternoon operation, with fees set between €300 and €2,000 according to procedure complexity.

The programme had originally aimed for 50,000 free surgeries but achieved about 20,000 in public hospitals and 6,000 in private clinics, a shortfall attributed to low patient uptake and staffing shortages, especially in the Patras region. Funding was split with €36 million to public hospitals and €5 million to private clinics.