The highly public suicide in early April of Greek pensioner Dimitris Christoulas prompted a wave of sympathy in the country, where many of the elderly are struggling amid the deep recession.

He became a symbol of the pain inflicted by the country's austerity measures, implemented in response to its sovereign debt crisis, when he shot himself in the head outside parliament."I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don't find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance," he wrote in his suicide note.

Pensioners like Christoulas have been hard hit by Greece's worst economic crisis since World War II, with cuts of 25 percent in old-age benefits on average over the past two years, as well as health spending cuts.