Landmark ruling: Compensation awarded to public hospital doctor for burnout
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In a landmark ruling for doctors in Greece’s National Health System (ESY), a court found for the first time that exhausting working conditions and the inadequate response of Rethymno Hospital’s administration were decisive factors in a doctor’s professional burnout and resignation.
- 20 Ιουλίου 2026 11:29
A court ruling of particular significance for working conditions in public hospitals has been issued in Crete, awarding €20,000 in compensation for moral damages to an ESY doctor who developed burnout syndrome.
The ruling concerns internist and infectious diseases specialist Eleni Ioannidou, the former director of the Internal Medicine Department at Rethymno Hospital, who resigned after alleging that the exceptionally demanding working conditions had led her to mental and physical exhaustion.
The court ruling on burnout
The court upheld the doctor’s lawsuit, finding that her working conditions, combined with the administration’s failure to respond meaningfully to her repeated requests, had played a decisive role in the onset of burnout and, ultimately, in her decision to resign.
The court awarded Eleni Ioannidou €20,000 in compensation for the moral damages she suffered, plus statutory interest from 21 August 2023, as well as legal costs.
The doctor herself made the ruling public in a social media post, noting that it marked her second legal victory against Rethymno Hospital.
As she stated, following her resignation she filed two lawsuits against the hospital administration. The first concerned compensation for 180 days of leave which, according to her, she had been unable to take because of chronic understaffing.
The second lawsuit concerned the moral damages she suffered as a result of the conditions under which she worked.
Eleni Ioannidou described a regime of constantly excessive on-call duties, involvement in the transfer of intubated patients, cuts to annual leave and days off, and the assumption of multiple responsibilities.
She maintains that the prolonged pressure led to complete mental and physical exhaustion, forcing her to leave a position she had chosen and loved.
“It is not only about me”
The former director of the Internal Medicine Department stressed that the ruling was not merely a personal vindication, but could also be of particular importance to other doctors who had been driven to resign under similar circumstances.
“I believe this is extremely important not only for my own vindication, given that I was forced by the circumstances to resign from a job I loved and had chosen, but also for dozens of similar cases in which colleagues were driven to resign for the same reasons,” she said.
The court’s reasoning
According to the key section of the court’s reasoning made public by the doctor, the court found that Eleni Ioannidou had exhausted every lawful means available to address the problems in her workplace, without achieving any meaningful result.
At the same time, it ruled that the prolonged workload and the absence of an effective response from the administration had contributed decisively to the development of burnout syndrome and to her resignation.
On this basis, the court recognised the hospital’s liability for the moral damages suffered by the doctor.
