By Angelos Anastasiou
PROBLEMS at the Nicosia General hospital came to a head on Tuesday night, when staff shortages and increased patient intake at the emergency department left nursing staff unable to provide care to many, the nurses’ union head Prodromos Argyrides said on Wednesday.
According to Argyrides, the issue has been ongoing for the past one or two months, but not to the extent observed on Tuesday.
“Despite the problems, we had been able to cope until Tuesday”, Argyrides said. “But recently we have been running out of beds to admit patients, resulting in some having to wait in emergency services for over 24 hours”.
Argyrides said that the situation is so bad that there have been instances of people scheduled for surgery to come in and find that their beds have been taken up by other patients.
“These beds are now occupied, and these people will come in today and find there are no beds for them”, Argyrides said. “They will complain, and they will be right”.
“There is also a large number of patients who were here last night (Tuesday) and had paid the examination fee, but were forced to leave without treatment”.
The nurse union rep vented his frustration by proposing a set of measures that could – but have yet to – be taken.
“It seems that the need to operate the closed beds is a dire one”, he said. “It seems that the ministry needs to find ways for excess patients to be diverted to other facilities. Or it could engage the private sector – what else is there to do?”
The union rep’s pleas for action did not go unanswered. By Wednesday afternoon, the Health ministry issued a statement with guidelines on how to treat excess patient intake, and authorising private-sector engagement.
“Where bed occupancy approaches 100 per cent, patients should be transported, if their condition allows, to another General Hospital with excess capacity”, the statement said.
Additionally, the ministry added, the Health ministry purchases services from private facilities on a lowest-cost basis.
“The Health ministry appreciates the massive efforts exerted at public healthcare facilities by nurses, doctors and other healthcare practitioners, who are being called upon to tackle enormous workloads under extreme pressure”, the statement concluded.
