Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis responded to the attack former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras launched against the government over gender registration options on the EOPYY platform. The minister argued there was no “ideological issue” at play, saying the option in question came from the way the contractor had built the platform based on an ISO standard, and added that he ordered it changed and that the correction has already been made.
Georgiadis responded in unusually sharp terms to the former prime minister’s intervention, saying that “by the time elections come around, the level of frivolity among people trying every which way to bring down Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government will break every record.”
According to the health minister, the issue came to his attention after a news report. He says he asked to be briefed and found that the contractor who built EOPYY’s electronic platform had included the option in question by following ISO standard guidelines.
He says he immediately ordered the platform changed, citing safety concerns around medication use.
“I immediately ordered it changed, not because I want to trample on anyone’s rights, but because when it comes to medication, self identified gender could potentially pose a health risk. As we speak, the platform has already been changed.”
A Sharp Reply to Samaras
The health minister turned personally against Antonis Samaras, linking his intervention to speculation about a new political party.
Georgiadis said that, apparently caught up in the excitement of founding his new party aimed at bringing down Mitsotakis, Samaras had put out a harsh statement, adding: “No, my dear President, a mistake was made, it’s been fixed, calm down.”
The minister also referenced a statement from Kyriakos Velopoulos, saying Velopoulos had also weighed in before EOPYY’s official statement was issued, but directed his criticism specifically at Samaras.
Samaras’s Original Attack
Samaras had earlier posted online, describing the “Male,” “Female,” “Other,” and “Unspecified” options on the EOPYY platform as part of a “woke agenda.”
The former prime minister called it a “deliberate government choice” and launched a broader attack on New Democracy, saying “the only thing ‘unspecified’ here is the scale of the ruling party’s ideological mutation.”
EOPYY’s Statement
EOPYY said that following a news report about the gender identification options on its platform, it wanted to clarify that the information, which appeared under the “insured person’s profile” tab on the home medication platform, had been added by the contractor in line with ISO/IEC 5218 standards, and has since been changed to allow selection of one of the two biological sexes only. The organization noted that this information is not used in processing insured persons’ data for the purpose of providing EOPYY’s services.
