By Tania Khadder
HEALTH Minister Frixos Savvides has made good on his promise to send a British man in a coma home in time for his birthday.
Stefan Schelze, who will be 43 on March 10, is scheduled to leave this morning on a Cyprus Airways flight from Paphos to Manchester, Cyprus Airways spokesman Tassos Angelis confirmed yesterday afternoon. Although the flight was fully booked, the airline has made arrangements to accommodate Schelze.
“It is our policy, that because this is a compassionate case, we will do everything we can and make it a priority to accommodate this man,” Angelis said.
Schelze suffered serious head injuries in a moped accident on December 9. Because he did not have insurance, he has been in limbo for the past two months awaiting repatriation. Upon hearing about his case on Wednesday, Savvides offered to send Schelze home to his family.
“I still believe that people care about things like this in Cyprus,” Savvides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday. “Many people tried to help.”
Savvides extended gratitude to the doctors who had cared for Schelze since his injury, and to the Cyprus Mail for bringing the story to his attention.
He also said that Helios Airways had offered to send Schelze back free of charge if the Cyprus Airways flight fell through.
Until today, Schelze was being cared for at Paphos General Hospital. He was taken off a ventilator on January 9, but has not regained consciousness and cannot move on his own. His doctor, Fylaktis Constantinides, says that he has begun to respond to some stimuli, and moves his eyelids when someone calls his name.
When he arrives in Manchester, his niece, Helen McCarthy, will greet him along with an ambulance that will take him directly to a local hospital for further care. McCarthy, who has been working to bring Schelze home for the last two months, said she was overwhelmed by the situation and the kindness of the people of Cyprus.
She now looks forward to his return, and says she is optimistic about his prospects.
“I can’t wait for him to get here. I think that we can do a lot with him,” she said yesterday.
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.
