OMBUDSWOMAN Eliana Nicolaou has given Health Minister Frixos Savvides 10 days to explain why a new operating theatre in the Nicosia General Hospital has not been put to use.
Nicolaou was investigating allegations made by a hospital doctor that the new operating theatre, which was built in an effort to accommodate heart patients, had not been put to use, meaning thousands of pounds in medical equipment were left idle.
According to a report seen by the Cyprus Mail, the ombudswoman’s letters to the Health Ministry requesting clarification of the hospital doctor’s complaints had not been answered.
Nicolaou claims that after repeated efforts to seek an answer, the General Secretary of the Health Ministry, Simeos Matsis, informed her that due to legal issues, the matter had been sent to the Attorney-general for evaluation.
Nicolaou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that should the Health Minister fail to provide a satisfactory response to her questions at the end of the 10-day period, she would take relevant measures in accordance with the law.
“The Ministry refuses to give me any information on policy grounds,” she said, adding that she would not take further action against Savvides, unless he failed to explain himself at the end of the 10-day period.
Frixos Savvides yesterday refused to comment on the issue but assured that the operating theatre would be operational in a month’s time.
“We already decided a month ago how to open and to what use we shall put the unit,” he said.
However, DIKO deputy Dr. Marios Matsakis said yesterday the Ministry had no intention of using the new operating theatre for heart surgery, but would instead use it for orthopaedic purposes.
Matsakis slammed the Health Ministry for buying thousands of pounds of heart surgery monitoring equipment that would now be useless, branding the decision as a waste of public money.
“In Cyprus today we operate on a certain number of people with heart problems, with most cases flying abroad,” Matsakis said.
“The Minister had pledged to increase the number of patients having heart surgery at the general hospital by building a new operating theatre.”
But Matsakis that the reason the Ministry has changed its mind and scrapped the idea is that patients – especially prominent figures – were wary of having open-heart surgery at the general hospital.
“Have you ever heard of a prominent person having an operation at the general hospital?” he asked.
“There are not enough beds and not enough staff to accommodate heart patients, so now the new operating theatre will be used for orthopaedic purposes.”
Matsakis said the hospital should have been put out of commission years ago and said he would never go there for an operation.
“The Nicosia General Hospital should have been shut down years ago, and those who kept it running all these years have committed a crime against the Cyprus people.”
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.
