‘Diplomats’ unpaid bill claims were false’

THE FOREIGN Ministry said yesterday the British tabloid Daily Express was totally mistaken when it claimed Cyprus High Commission staff in London owed hundreds of thousands of pounds to the NHS in the UK.

A Ministry spokesman said yesterday they had investigated the claims reported in the newspaper on Tuesday.

“They got it wrong,” the spokesman said. “These were not officials from the embassy.”

The paper said that staff from the London consulates of Cyprus, Kuwait and Qatar had failed to pay more than £1 million sterling for NHS treatment.

London’s Royal Free and University College hospitals were owed more than £1 million. It said it was told by hospital managers that the debts were less than three months old.

There are bills but the Foreign Ministry said these related to Cypriots who had been sent abroad for treatment by the Health Ministry, not High Commission staff.

Diplomatic staff abroad receive private health care and do not use the NHS.

“Some of the hospitals in the article are going to become foundations and they are looking at their accounts,” said the spokesman.

“It’s not that the government of Cyprus owes money. Once the patient is treated they send the bill to the Health Ministry for payment.

The spokesman said the money referred to related to six Cypriots that were currently in the UK receiving treatment, and once they were finished the outstanding amounts would be paid by the government.

“They are in the process of clearing their accounts and the government of Cyprus is in the process of payment.” It was unthinkable to suggest the government would not pay its bill to the British NHS, the Ministry spokesman said.

The Cyprus High Commission in London will now ask the hospitals in question to send clarifications to the Daily Express.
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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.