Minister slams oncology centre focus

HEALTH MINISTER Andreas Gavrielides said yesterday he was “saddened” by the fact that the Makarios Child Oncology Centre (COC) has become the centre of the media’s attention.
Talking yesterday before the House Health Committee, he said that it was wrong that “unhappy individuals” have become the topic of discussion by the media and has asked all parties involved to lower the tone and help towards the improvement of the COC.

The minister informed the Committee that the department had applied to the Health Ministry and asked for the creation of more wards, an increase in doctors and nursing staff, the strengthening of the leukaemia labs and the purchase of new equipment.

Referring to the recent media coverage on the matter, Gavrielides said, “We can’t all become doctors”.

“Some people are getting involved without having the slightest speciality to suggest medical solutions,” he said.

The Makarios COC hit the headlines two weeks ago when grieving mother Chryso Theodorou, whose son Giorgos was a patient at the COC and died of cancer in 2004, claimed that the conditions at the hospital were awful and that she was never told that her son could have been anaesthetised during the many painful injections he had to endure.

“The nurse and myself had to hold my child down and put enormous pressure on him so that he wouldn’t move. He suffered so much,” she said at the time.

But Gavrielides told the Committee that the report given to him by the Head of Medical Services showed that the centre was within the frame set by the Health Ministry. He also said that various reports from abroad praise the Cypriot COC, though there is always room for improvement, he added.

Rejecting claims from parents of children with cancer, saying that he did not accept to see them in his office, the minister said that he has ears for all members of the public but that it is “unfair” to expect him to see 300,000 people in one day, or even a week.

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