E.U. HEALTH Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou yesterday offered to help upgrade the State Laboratory to promote issues of food safety in the entire Mediterranean region, including the Middle East and North Africa.
Vassiliou met with Health Minister Christos Patsalides in Cyprus yesterday to discuss the health agenda on the island, expressing her readiness to help upgrade the State Lab to serve the entire region.
Patsalides said the two discussed ways to develop the State Lab into a “regional centre for the Middle East” with a view to promoting issues of food safety in the region.
Speaking after the meeting, Patsalides said he raised some concerns regarding the EU directive on the trans-frontier medical care of patients, which he described as a “huge step in health matters within the EU”.
Vassiliou explained that the process to adopt the directive was a lengthy one. She called on Cyprus to identify the difficulties it might face so it could prepare to deal with them once the directive was approved.
The Cypriot Commissioner also responded positively to the minister’s request for administrative and consultative assistance to support scientists who wish to draw funds from EU grants.
Vassiliou offered to help set up a mechanism at the Health Ministry to assist the public sector and non-governmental organisations to secure EU funding.
On the issue of patient’s safety, she said Europe was monitoring investigations into the recent outbreak of Legionnaires disease, which resulted in the death of three infants, with great interest.
Vassiliou noted this was the first time the virus had appeared in an infants’ ward. The Commissioner expressed hope that the conclusions of the investigations would lay the foundations for a monitoring system to ensure that such tragic incidents did not occur again.
Asked to comment on a recent Eurohealth study, which saw Cyprus’ health care service drop eight places in the rankings, Vassiliou expressed some doubts as to the validity of the scientific analysis presented in the report.
However, she stressed that one must not “hide things under the carpet”, adding that the health sector’s problems had to be tackled if the situation was to be improved.
For his part, Patsalides acknowledged the pressing needs of the health sector, maintaining that the Ministry was working very hard to provide a better service.
