Dear Editor,

I have read with interest the letter from David and Fiona Boyd in yesterday’s Cyprus Mail.
Perhaps I could add to the debate but from a slightly different perspective.

Firstly let me say that I agree with every word they say and my own personal experience very much bears this out.

Before I retired to live in Cyprus some 4 years ago I was the founder and Chief Executive of The Disabilities Trust a well known and major UK disability charity.

Some 15 years ago I established, as part of this organisation ,The Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust, which has now become the largest provider of care and rehabilitation for people suffering the effects of traumatic brain injuries within the European Union.

The point I really want to make is that 20 and more years ago, most people who had suffered head injuries caused by road traffic accidents died on the way to the Casualty Department.. From accounts I read in the press this seems to be very much the current pattern in Cyprus.
Within most modern European States one has seen that with an efficient, dedicated, and well trained ambulance service, together with considerable advances in trauma care more and more people are surviving their injuries ,and with good rehabilitation programmes can go on to lead meaningful lives.

It may not be the life they enjoyed previously but it still has purpose. I established BIRT all those years ago, as a result of so many people actually surviving their injuries. Leading clinicians at the time, described this as a hidden epidemic. We had to carry on the enormous task of rehabilitating the many thousands of survivors whose lives had been saved by an efficient and highly trained ambulance service and hospital casualty departments….
If Cyprus wishes to takes its place as a modern European State it must do something about the lamentable state of its ambulance service! Good luck to Sophie’s Angels!

Sincerely,
Norman C Thody,
Coral Bay

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.