Jon Henley speaks to a health worker who warns that children will die from disorders that are easily detected and treated

The consequences of Greece's crisis are like ripples in a pool; you can start from one small person in the middle, and end up in unimagined places.

Take Korina Hatzinikolaou. For her, the consequences of Greece's crisis are already severe – personally, professionally, financially. But her story touches far wider concerns: the life expectancy of Greek newborns, for example.

But let's start with Hatzinikolaou. Personally, at the age of 36, she now finds herself living back with her own mother in an Athens suburb, sleeping on the living room sofa while her two small sons occupy what used to be the dining room.

Professionally, she is still waiting to hear whether she will actually be appointed to the post to which she was elected, nearly two years ago now, at the university in Thessaloniki. Or, for that matter, whether the post still even exists – education cuts have been savage.

But she's worried that even if the job does come through, she may not be able to afford to move. Because financially, she's stuck: her salary at the Institute of Children's Health, where she is armed with a PhD in developmental psychology from Reading University and extensive professional experience in Greece and abroad, has been cut from €1,400 (£1,100) to €900 a month.

And even that, she hasn't been receiving since December. "I have no idea what I'm going to be paid, or when," she said. "I've been doing DJ work once a week to stay above water. Fifty or 60 euros a session, it covers petrol and cigarettes. My mum pays the rest. But even her income is no longer assured – she's a lawyer, but she has less and less work."

Beyond her own situation, Hatzinikolaou is angered by what's happening to her place of work. The institute is a semi-public facility, 50% state-funded, responsible for Greece's public health provision to children.

Among other things, it is the national reference point for child abuse and neglect, and runs the national neonatal screening programme.

Last year, the government slashed its share of the institute's budget by 55%. Unfortunately, it had previously been promised a full budget for 2011, so was committed to programmes and contracts from which it could not back out.

As a consequence, it now owes money to suppliers. So, recently, the health ministry suggested it might perhaps better be shut down altogether.

Beyond the immediate fate of the institute, Hatzinikolaou is concerned about the knock-on effects for child health provision in Greece. Most urgently and importantly, she is alarmed that already, a number of neonatal or newborn screening tests are no longer being carried out because there isn't enough money to pay for them.

Neonatal screening is the process by which babies are screened for up to 40 serious developmental, congenital and metabolic disorders, including sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis, that may be treatable but difficult, or even impossible, to detect clinically. The tests are usually carried out on small blood spots obtained by pricking the infant's heel soon after birth.

In Greece, Hatzinikolaou said, "it is effectively grinding to a halt".

"If the institute's funding does not come through, or if it is closed down, national neonatal testing in Greece will stop. We will see children dying from disorders that we know how to detect, and know how to treat."

The institute has seen other symptoms of the crisis, Hatzinikolaou said: "There's been a big increase in bullying in schools. Large numbers of families are under great stress, and that is reflected in some children's behaviour. And all sorts of organisations, that help autistic children for example, have had their funding slashed."

The net effect on her personally, she said, has been hugely frustrating. "I think the government, political parties, the banks, international interests are fundamentally responsible for this. But I do think people like me need to stay and continue working in the system to make it better. I am tempted to leave, but I would feel bad to leave Greece at this moment."

She can see, she said, no real way out of this crisis. "I can see ways of dealing with it, up to the point where it may eventually end, but I don't think it will end peacefully. I think we will have a social uprising. In some respects, we already have one."

Among the ways of dealing with it, she's said, are the many grassroots initiatives that have sprung up as Greek people start to organise for themselves: "There are local assemblies now, in many parts of Greece.

"People who meet twice a week, like in my neighbourhood. We address local problems, organise clothing and book swaps, food distribution, exchanges of goods and services. There's almost a parallel local administration in some places."

Of course, this should all be the responsibility of the state.

"But it isn't doing it, so we have to. But there are limits to what ordinary people can do. We can do much, but we cannot run a health system. At some point, a state has to say, 'You know what? This really matters. Let's all do it, together'. But here in Greece, the social state is collapsing. I am not sure how it will end."