Government must act over heart scandal

THE SHOCK revelations about the inadequacy of the Limassol hospital’s cardiology clinic, made by the doctor in charge, cannot be dismissed as some publicity gimmick or as part of a feud with the health ministry. These were very serious claims that warrant an immediate explanation from the mandarins of the ministry, whose main concern appears to be how to keep the information from the public rather than to resolve the problem.

Dr Michalis Minas, the head of the cardiology clinic, said that heart patients were dying while awaiting treatment that could not be carried out because of lack of staff and equipment. Patients were dying because the hospital cannot carry out pulmonary artery catherisation, said Dr Minas, adding that this was the only hospital in the world that did not have an intensive care unit, specifically for heart patients – who are put in a ward where people with serious infectious diseases were also being treated.

He also accused health ministry officials of refusing to release funds for the vital equipment, on the pretext that this was not financially justified. There were also serious staffing shortages. He claimed that his six doctors had checked thousands more patients, on average, every year, than the Nicosia General Hospital which had almost twice the staff.

What was worse was that is was not a new problem. Dr Minas has been complaining about this scandalous situation for three years now without anything being done. High-ranking ministry officials have been making promises to release the funds for equipment and to send more staff to Limassol but nothing is ever done. The ministry had promised to resolve these problems within six months when Minas first complained about them, in April 2001. Yet nothing was done. On Wednesday, ministry officials said the equipment would be in place within four to five months, but nobody seems to believe them.

In fairness, ministry officials are taking a much bigger share of the blame than they deserve. All they have done really is to make promises that they cannot keep because funds are not available. It is successive governments which do not make funds available because they have other priorities, such as constructing motorways, building huge ministry buildings and buying military equipment. It is the previous government which decided to spend millions on a Paphos-Polis motorway and the current government which spent £60 million pounds upgrading our missile systems last year.

Our society is wasting money on luxuries and boasting about our high standard of living, but it cannot provide a basic level of state healthcare in our four towns. It is scandalous that in this day and age, heart patients are dying while on waiting lists for treatment, but we continue to spend tens of millions of pounds on upgrading our missile systems.