GREEK and Turkish Cypriot cancer patients furious at a Health Ministry decision to relocate Nicosia General Hospital’s Oncology department to Limassol, yesterday held a one-hour demonstration outside the House of Representatives.
Health Minister Dina Akkelidou maintained that moving the department to Limassol would decentralise the provision of cancer care and allow patients from both Limassol and Paphos to have easier access to treatment.
“More than 50 per cent of the island’s cancer patient population lives in Limassol and Paphos,” she said, “so moving the oncology department to Limassol would benefit that population”.
“Patients in Nicosia can use the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre instead. I don’t see what the problem is,” she added.
Although privately funded, the Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre provides free treatment in association with the state system.
But angry patients yesterday accused Akkelidou of seeing them only as statistics and demanded that state oncology centres be opened in Limassol and Nicosia.
The patients were outraged at the government’s failure to ensure that an oncology centre was created as part of the new multi-million Nicosia General Hospital.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday, co-ordinator for the patients’ protest, Marina Skoutella, said both the present and previous governments had failed to see cancer patients as human beings.
“The previous government failed to create an oncology centre at the new hospital and now this government wants to shut the one we have at the old hospital,” she said.
“Oncology centres are needed all over the island and they need to be operated by the state and not as private institutions.
“And where did Mrs Akkelidou get her numbers from? We were told by our doctors at the oncology department here at the hospital that the figures she announced were not true,” she added.
Skoutella warned that the patients would take the government to the European Court of Human Rights.
“We are first going to take this up with the President because we were told by (House Chairman) Demitris Christofias that it was the President and the Health Minister who had the final say in the issue,” she said.
“We have appealed to Mrs Akkelidou many times, but she is negative, she doesn’t see patients as human beings, she sees us as numbers, but we are citizens of this country too and we will speak our mind, and we will demand our rights.”
One patient told the Cyprus Mail that they were reluctant to leave the secure environment that doctors at the state oncology department had created for them.
“The doctors didn’t pity us because we had cancer, they showed us care and understanding and they created a sense of security for all of us suffering from this disease,” the patient said.
“They have given us a shoulder to lean on, they have made us feel that our lives aren’t over. We are not just names and numbers, we are human beings and we don’t want to go to a private oncology centre because we feel we will not be treated in the same way.
“We can call our doctors at home if we feel sick or even for support,” another patient said. “I have only one lung and when I go to the state oncology department they know exactly what to do because they all know me there. Why should I trust anyone else?”
“If they were in our shoes, what would they do? It’s only because God didn’t punish them with cancer, or else they would be creating centres all over the island.”
