The Panhellenic Federation of Workers in Public Hospitals reported on Tuesday that a large number of children have been abandoned and are being cared for at the Aghia Sophia Children's Hospital at the orders of public prosecutors, due to a lack of appropriate welfare facilities to take them in.
According to the Federation, forty children, from months-old babies to 14-year-old teenagers, are currently staying at the hospital, while some of them have been there for up to 10 years.
The Federation said that a large number of them engage in delinquent behaviour or acts of aggression toward the staff or other hospitalised children. They also operate as gangs and steal money and other items from the staff and visitors. "It is a shame to turn the children's hospital into a warehouse of souls," the announcement said.
"The children should be immediately sent to appropriate welfare units that can host them and launch procedures for their adoption or fostering, so that the older children can live in dignity, participating in de-instutionalisation programmes," said the Federation.