The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) announced an initial grant of 200 million euros to support the struggling Health sector in Greece.
The Ministry of Health indicated to the SNF the most pressing, prioritized, needs of the Greek Health sector and the SNF intends to undertake the task of fully funding the projects.
The new grants include, primarily, four major interventions throughout the country. However, the main projects outlined below are expected to be complemented by additional upgrades in existing hospital services, new medical equipment and education-related projects.
The core projects include the following:
- The construction and outfitting of a new building for the General Hospital of Komotini. It is one of the oldest hospitals in Greece, with equally old infrastructure.
- The construction and outfitting of a Children’s Hospital in Thessaloniki. The establishment of a Pediatric Hospital in Thessaloniki, in response to the decades-long need of the population in the wider region, will act as a major health service and treatment hub for the whole of Northern Greece and Thessaly.
- The reconstruction and complete outfitting of the Nursing Sisters’ building at Evangelismos Hospital, with the purpose of operating as the Chair of the University’s Faculty of Nursing.
- Strengthening the capability and efficiency of the National Center for Emergency Care’s (EKAV) air ambulance services, with the aim of achieving comprehensive coverage of the entire country. The grant initially focuses on the procurement of 2 new helicopters and the repair/upgrade of the older ones. This particular grant comes as an addition to a previous SNF grant to EKAV, currently under implementation, which covers, among others, the procurement of 143 state-of-the-art ambulances as well as their full service and maintenance for a period of 8 years and the digital upgrade of its operations center.
Since 1996, when the SNF began its grant making activity, the SNF has provided grants totaling more than 100 million euros for the support of the Greek Health sector.
Stavros was born in Athens to a wealthy family, son of Spyros Niarchos and his wife, Eugenie Koumantaros, a rich heiress. His great great grand father, Philippos Niarchos, a Greek shipping agent in Valletta, had married a daughter from a noble family in Malta, whose younger offspring had moved to Greece to base themselves in a merchant business from Malta.
His parents were naturalized Americans who had owned a department store in Buffalo, New York before returning to Greece, three months prior to his birth. He studied in the city’s best private school before starting university. He studied law at the University of Athens, after which he went to work for his maternal uncles in the Koumantaros family’s grain business. During this period, he became involved in shipping by convincing his uncles their firm would be more profitable if it owned its own ships.
He then founded Niarchos Ltd., an international shipping company that at one time operated more than 80 tankers worldwide. In 1952 high capacity oil supertankers were built for the competing Niarchos and Onassis fleets who were, at the time, both claiming to own the largest tanker in the world.
In 1956 the Suez Canal Crisis considerably increased the demand for the type of large tonnage ships that Niarchos owned. Business flourished and he became a billionaire.
Niarchos died in 1996, in Zurich. He is buried in the family tomb in Lausanne. At his death his fortune was estimated to be worth in excess of $22 billion. When Niarchos died, he left half his fortune to a charitable trust to be established in his name
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation [(SNF) (www.SNF.org)] is one of the world’s leading private, international philanthropic organizations, making grants in the areas of arts and culture, education, health and sports, and social welfare. Since 1996, and taking into consideration the SNF’s intention to further support the Health sector in Greece with a series of infrastructure and education projects, the SNF will have committed more than $2.4 billion, through almost 4,000 grants to nonprofit organizations in 113 nations around the world. The Foundation funds organizations and projects that are expected to achieve a broad, lasting and positive impact for society at large, and exhibit strong leadership and sound management. The Foundation also supports projects that facilitate the formation of public-private partnerships as an effective means for serving public welfare.
In addition to its standard grants, the SNF has continued to respond to the urgent needs of Greek society, by providing relief against the severe effects of the socioeconomic crisis through three major grant initiatives of $378 million, which have almost been completed.