‘Real work needed to implement Gesy’

State hospitals are once again in the firing line over complaints of poor service, causing concern ahead of the rollout of the second phase of Gesy in June.

“The empty talk has to end and real work has to be done,” President of the Federation of Patients Marios Kouloumas said.

He said the main issues are outdated policies and the mentality of the state employees, both of which are major hurdles to the smooth running of the hospitals.

“We cannot have parts of the state hospitals closing by the end of the morning,” he said.

Since the implementation of Gesy in June 2019 state employees working in hospitals are no longer employed by the health ministry and are now overseen by Okypy.

Various factions within the health service are at odds with each other even, creating animosity between co-workers.

Kouloumas has called on Okypy to “take their supervisory role seriously, and where necessary to bring in compliance measures and punishments.”

For their part, Okypy have praised the work of state hospitals.

“State hospitals are ready for the second phase of Gesy – and better so than the private ones,” Okypy spokesman Charalambos Charilaou said.

In the meantime, around 3,000 state nurses, members of civil servants’ union Pasydy said they were despairing over the state of public hospitals and were disappointed that the situation had not improved since their new employer, Okypy, took over.

The head of Pasydy’s nurses’ branch Prodromos Argyrides told state broadcaster CyBC that the hospitals were in chaos.

“We all feel that things do not live up to the expectations that had been created that with the autonomy of state hospitals things would improve,” he said, adding that the staff were disappointed by the lack of dialogue with Okypy or its ineffectiveness.

The second phase of Gesy in June 2020 will be a major stress test for the already embattled healthcare system.

Conditions in the hospitals have frustrated patients and their families, with some going as far to say that they have to bring in their own pillows and bedding.

 

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