New vision for the Health Ministry

THE Health Ministry will not be the ministry we all know today in a few years’ time, but the strategic brain and co-ordinator behind health matters in Cyprus, Cypriot MEP Adamos Adamou stated yesterday.

Adamou was speaking after a meeting between Health Minister Charis Charalambous and the European Parliament’s Committee for the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

“As MEPs, we are satisfied with the Health Ministry, which is in the middle of changes, and I believe that in one or two years the Health Ministry will cease to be the ministry that you know today; it will be a Ministry of Health, the strategic brain and co-ordinator of health matters, and I believe this change will bring vast improvements to the general health services offered to the Cypriot public,” said Adamou.

He added that the Committee was satisfied over a number of issues discussed with the Health Minister, but there were still further improvements that needed to be made.

Adamou paid special tribute to the fact that Cyprus was one of just 11 EU member states that will now fully implement the pilot programme for preventive breast cancer checks.

He added that further preventive programmes for cancer would soon be introduced to the island’s health services.

For his part, Minister Charalambous said his ministry had informed the EU delegation on the way the Health Ministry had adjusted to acquis communautaire and how it had implemented the new obligations that came with Cyprus’ accession to the EU.

”I believe the MEPs have remained satisfied with the work that is carried out here and now encouraged, we will move ahead with new tasks which we have already begun and which we presented today,” said the minister.

He added, “The preventive programmes that the ministry has began for the prevention of illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity and smoking, have been accepted by the delegation and this fills us with joy as we invest more in prevention rather than therapy”.

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.