AFTER A meeting last week attended by the ministers of health and education and the rector of the University of Cyprus, it was announced that a medical school would be opened in 2013. After the meeting health minister Stavros Malas said the academic staff would be hired next year and would work at the Nicosia General Hospital which would become Cyprus’ first university hospital.
And a year later, the University of Cyprus’ medical school would reportedly accept its first students. This seems an extremely ambitious target considering that such a school would require detailed planning, expensive equipment and facilities not to mention the staff selection and detailed preparation of courses and so forth. A medical school is not like an economics department or a business school which could be set up in a couple of years.
But the way the project was presented was as if it was the easiest thing in the world. All that remained to be done, according to the Education Minister Giorgos Demosthenous, was the amendment of the legislation to allow the establishment and operation of the medical school; there was already a Council of Ministers decision to this effect. The rector Constantinos Christofides said he hoped that certain problems relating to the university’s budget would be resolved in the next few weeks so the preparations could start in earnest.
But how likely is it that in this economic climate, the cash-strapped state would be able to come up with the tens of millions of euros required to establish a medical school. The Cyprus University is already a big drain on state finances and it would be irresponsible of the government, under pressure to cut spending, to squander millions on a medical school at time when it has no money to spend on development projects that would create jobs.
The fact that not enough planning has gone into the project – evident from what the ministers have been saying – is another reason for putting it off. Experience has shown that lack of planning invariably results in the squandering of public funds, something we can ill afford at present. In fact the university would do well to follow the example of the private University of Nicosia which has set up a medical school in association with a well-respected and long-established UK medical school. By securing the expertise and know-how from abroad it has managed to keep costs to manageable levels.
This is what the University of Cyprus should have done instead of thinking it could set up a medical school from scratch, in a couple of years. Everyone would like the state university to have a state medical school, but before any decisions are taken we think the taxpayer, who will be picking up the bill for this ambitious plan, deserves to know what it would cost, if anyone actually knows.
