“SOS over the birth-rate slump” on Leros and Kalymnos – Doctors write to the President

At a time when a collapsing birth rate threatens the very survival of the border islands, the Medical Association of the Province of Kalymnos “Skevos Zervos” has sent the following letter to His Excellency the President of the Hellenic Republic, Konstantinos Tasoulas.

“To His Excellency the President of the Hellenic Republic,
Mr Konstantinos Tasoulas

Your Excellency,

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Further to our conversation on Kalymnos last Thursday, 11 September 2025, I informed you about the problem of low birth rates affecting our frontier islands. You showed great interest and, for this reason, I am sending you the official births-and-deaths figures we have obtained from the civil registries of Kalymnos and Leros for the period 2010–2024.

In every one of those years the balance of births to deaths is negative (Kalymnos: –793; Leros: –558). Article 120(4) of the Constitution of the Hellenic Republic states that “the observance of the Constitution is entrusted to the patriotism of the Greeks.”

On 17 October 2025 we are co-organising, on Kalymnos, a one-day conference on low birth rates and their impact on our country, together with: the Athens Medical Association; the Hellenic Society of Reproductive Medicine; the National Inter-Municipal Network of Healthy Cities (affiliated with the World Health Organization – WHO); the World Hippocratic Institute of Physicians; the Greek Health Tourism Council (ELITOUR); and the Municipality of Kalymnos.

We respectfully ask that you take the initiative — as the Constitution entitles you to do — so that the state adopts additional measures to reverse the negative births-to-deaths balance which, in the near future, threatens our existence as a nation.

The Medical Association of the Province of Kalymnos “Skevos Zervos”, with its comparatively modest resources, will stand by your side in this effort.”