Mental health care delivery system in Greece: a critical overview.

The organizational profile of the mental health care delivery system in Greece is mainly characterized by centralization which is reflected in various functional parts of the system (uneven distribution of psychiatric beds and manpower, absence of psychiatric units in general hospitals serving a certain catchment area, lack of community-based psychiatric services, etc.) As a result of this centralized structure there is a centrifugal flow of the mentally ill patients toward Athens and Thessaloniki and consequently the existing possibilities for community-based care as an alternative to inpatient treatment are rather limited. Future immediate objectives of the national social policy planning should be based on decentralization and reorganization of the psychiatric services in order for the mental health delivery system to respond more effectively to the mental health needs of the Greek population.