A CANCER support group yesterday charged the government with secretly acting to close down the Oncology Department at the Nicosia General Hospital in order to purchase services from the Bank of Cyprus (BoC) Oncology Centre.
Christos Andreou, head of the committee of Cancer Patients and Relatives of the Oncology Centre at Nicosia General Hospital, yesterday accused the government of working in collusion with the BoC Centre to dissolve the radiotherapy unit at the hospital.
Andreou said he had documents labelled “confidential” that related to the dissolution of the radiotherapy unit at the state hospital and a written pledge by the state not duplicate services on offer at the BoC Oncology Centre.
“Unfortunately we see a lot of things going on behind the scenes,” said Andreou.
The cancer activist referred to the Health Minister’s decision to close and then re-open four beds at the Oncology Department.
Earlier this year, the government ordered the hospital to close one of its oncology wards ahead of the move, now expected in 2006, to the new general hospital. The new hospital will not have a dedicated oncology ward. Patients will either be sent to the BoC Oncology Centre or to Limassol Hospital’s dedicated ward, or simply put up in other parts of the general hospital, something patients and their campaigners say is unacceptable.
Last February, police were called to Nicosia Hospital when cancer activists broke down the door of a sealed off cancer ward after staff refused to open the room to take a patient.
The Health Minister has since ordered four beds to be re-opened at the hospital after nurse shortages at the BoC centre caused a reduction in bed capacity from 32 to 20. Yesterday, the beds were nowhere to be found, according to Andreou. Although nursing staff at the hospital oncology ward has increased from 17 to 20, bed capacity remains 14 until the beds that were taken away from the closed ward are relocated.
Andreou censured other cancer associations on the island for comments made on the four beds.
A number of cancer associations questioned the government’s decision to increase the bed capacity at the hospital when a whole ward had closed at the BoC Oncology Centre due to nurse shortages.
“We see this as an insult because cancer patients are not split into two categories, the good ones at BoC and the bad ones here at the hospital.”
On the hospital’s closed radiotherapy unit, he said the government had acted specifically to ensure machinery that had broken down was never fixed. He revealed an initial report concluded that spare parts were available and could be found within days but five months later, a new report concluded that the machine was irreparably broken.
“The World Health Organisation just recently called on all members to increase state oncology units because of the spread of cancer. Only here are we closing state oncology centres,” said Andreou.
He further argued that the hospital centre was being used as a burial ground for dying patients. “They are given directions not to send patients here. Only those on their deathbeds come here. The average age of patients here is 72. We demand equal treatment.”
Head of the oncology department at the hospital, Dr Antonis Rossides, highlighted that the oncology department could offer chemotherapy services but not radiotherapy as a result of the broken machinery.
“We were under the impression that the machinery could be fixed. It’s been three years now we are without and they say they will build a radiotherapy unit at Limassol Hospital but that won’t be ready for at least another three years. That’s six years in total.”
Rossides argued that the money spent ferrying patients from the hospital to the BoC Centre for radiotherapy treatment justified purchasing new machinery.
“We have four patients that need radiotherapy treatment. They don’t accept them at the BoC Centre so we have to send them every day to get treatment with separate ambulances and nurses.”
“It’s a five-week therapy, we send three ambulances a day. The cost of this surely warrants fixing machines or buying a new one,” he said.
“The hospital needs a complete radiotherapy unit. We have an oncology department here, we need to be able to offer comprehensive services.”
Rossides referred to a French study which revealed that for every 250,000 people, a country needed one radiotherapy unit.
“If you count the Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus, we need four here. We had two, they broke down. Now we only have two at the BoC, and are expecting two more in Limassol but that means we spend six years with only half what we are supposed to.”
