By Elias Hazou
Health minister under resignation Philippos Patsalis on Tuesday denied reports claiming he had personally interceded to do a favour to an acquaintance of his, a pulmonologist.
According to daily Politis, Patsalis had recently intervened to have a friend transferred to Kyperounda hospital instead of to Limassol’s Pulmonology Clinic.
Patsalis’ acquaintance had been promoted to clinic director. However, the Nicosia clinic already had a director in place, so the logical solution would have been to transfer the doctor to Limassol’s Pulmonology Clinic, which lacked a director.
Instead, Patsalis allegedly had the physician transferred to Kyperounda, with the arrangement that he would spend two days a week there, and three days in Nicosia.
To justify the presence of a pulmonology director in Kyperounda, the paper said, Patsalis then also had a pulmonologist from the Limassol clinic whisked to Kyperounda.
This reportedly drew objections from the Limassol clinic, which is short on pulmonologists.
Patsalis denied the story.
In a brief telephone communication, he told the Cyprus Mail that the reports were not true and that he did not even know the pulmonologist alleged to be his friend.
He declined to comment further on why he had stepped down.
Patsalis’ resignation was announced over the weekend, fuelling speculation as to the reasons.
Some say he quit because he was being stonewalled by the government. The cabinet decided to postpone approving the bill on hospital autonomy, which forms an integral part of the proposed national health scheme (NHS).
Others suggested Patsalis left pre-emptively, sensing he was on his way out anyway as the President was unsatisfied with his overall performance and his “managerial skills.”
Following Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, which he attended, Patsalis told reporters only that he would stay on until the President finds a replacement.
Government spokesman Nicos Christodoulides said the President thanked the health minister for his important work.
Patsalis’ replacement would likely be announced over the next 10 days, he added.
The spokesman dismissed the notion that the government is backtracking on the NHS because of pressure from interest groups.
Asked how the administration plans to handle the NHS issue with the troika, Christodoulides said: “We are in touch with them, we will be explaining how things stand. The point is to have a positive outcome.
The political will does exist, the intention [to reform the public health care system] is there, and we are optimistic that we shall have results soon.”
Meantime, in another twist, Patsalis has filed a complaint to police over a spoof blog post claiming the minister stepped down because of the President’s refusal to sanction the use of medical marijuana.
Over the weekend, the Friends of Cannabis group posted a fake letter of resignation by Patsalis. In it, the minister ‘said’ he could no longer serve while thousands of people suffered because they were being denied medical marijuana.
The police’s cyber crime unit is investigating Patsalis’ complaint. Friends of Cannabis said the post was satire, and protested its freedom of speech.
