‘State squandering money on non-existent NHS’

 

YOU HAVE wasted millions for nothing, a disappointed health chief who quit over the National Health Scheme (NHS) told the government yesterday.

Kyriacos Christofi headed the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO), the body responsible for implementing the NHS, but after initially submitting a letter of resignation late March – frustrated at the state’s refusal to implement the scheme – he confirmed that yesterday would be his last.

The silence he received from the government over threats to resign “led to the general conclusion that I have no role to fill so today is my last day at the HIO,” Christofi said.

However, the cabinet did discuss his resignation on Wednesday and had agreed to accept it.

Christofi said despite the lack of a timeframe for the introduction of an NHS, 55 officials are employed at the HIO earning good salaries. “How can the decision makers account to the Cypriot people for all the expenses bourne until now?” Christofi said.

“We have no goal and we don’t know what to do next,” he said describing the current state of the organisation.

“I’m very sorry that I didn’t manage to offer with mine and my collaborators’ efforts what we promised the Cypriot people,” Christofi said.

Christofi has repeatedly said he would only stay at his post if the government committed to a timeframe for the NHS.

His resignation was originally tendered early in the year after the Ministers of Health and Finance both refused to commit to a roadmap for the implementation of the NHS.

Both ministers cited financial reasons as the reason to further delay the NHS.

Soon after that, Christofi warned that the HIO needed to receive the green light to go through final tenders for the IT system and then be set up, which would take at least two and a half years.

Finally in April, president Christofias also made it clear there would be no NHS coming any time soon.

The bill for the NHS dates back to 2001 and has been postponed by parliament on numerous occasions, leaving Cyprus as the only European Union country lacking an NHS.

 

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.