Optimism over doctors dispute

BOTH government doctors’ union Pasyki and Finance Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou yesterday appeared optimistic about averting the indefinite strike that doctors have threatened to begin on December 1.

“Even if I am, supposedly, tough, I am by nature always optimistic,” Christodoulou said after a meeting between a ministerial committee he chairs and the Pasyki leadership yesterday.

Neither Christodoulou nor Pasyki chairman Stavros Stavrou were giving anything away about what had been said during the meeting, but Stavrou also said he was optimistic a way out could be found.

The doctors are demanding more money and a reorganisation of the health service. They have been incensed by Christodoulou’s refusal to recognise and negotiate with their breakaway union.

The minister insists he will only negotiate doctors’ demands with umbrella civil servants’ union Pasydy because the doctors did not follow proper procedure when abandoning the union last Summer to form Pasyki.

On Wednesday, the ministerial committee discussed doctors’ demands with Pasydy – which 98 per cent of state doctors have abandoned.

Christodoulou described yesterday’s meeting with Pasyki as “honest and friendly.” He gave no indication that the meeting represented a softening of his stance towards the breakaway union.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.