NHS report due out this week

THE National Health System (NHS) report is expected this week amid criticism from the House Health Committee over its proposed budget.

“The Health Insurance Organisation’s (HIO) 2011 budget is weak and without provisions to promote the implementation of the NHS,” said the chairman of the House Health Committee, DISY’s Constantinos Constantinou. The committee will meet to discuss the NHS on February 24, after the ministerial committee in charge of the scheme has concluded its report on the financial standings and true cost of promoting and implementing the NHS.

“I am convinced that this system must be made operational to alleviate the public from all those queues and discomfort … we owe Cypriots to be able to deliver the system as soon as possible,” said Kyriacos Christofi, head of the Health Insurance Organisation.

Currently there are two health care systems: “the public and private health sectors are working independently from each other,” a HIO member said.

The Health Ministry has prepared an action plan to draw up contracts with private hospitals, Health Ministry’s permanent secretary, Dionysis Mavronicolas said on Friday at the Health Committee’s meeting.

Meanwhile, the HIO is still waiting on offers to set up its IT system, Christofi said.

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.