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After 2010, a rising number of the unemployed and the self-employed, who had stopped paying health insurance to their occupation-based social security funds, lost access to public health care. They resorted to the Greek branches of international health care NGOs, such as the “Doctors without Borders” and the “Doctors of the World” which in the wake of the crisis expanded their services to Greece. In addition, informal networks of health care provision emerged. They consisted of doctors, nurses and social workers, who created make-shift clinics usually in spaces provided by the municipal authorities in various cities. These clinics were called ‘Social Medical Centres’. In 2012, there were 33 such clinics in 29 cities. In parallel, pharmacists volunteered to set up ‘Social Pharmacies’.

In brief, as the state started rolling back its welfare functions, citizens stepped in to occupy the newly available public space. Activists who were not interested in the foundation of typical NGOs and in fact distrusted NGOs because of their earlier patronage-based relations with the state, grouped together in order to create small social safety nets at various locations all over Greece. The crisis inspired and necessitated social innovation ‘from below’ that was targeted towards welfare provision.