THE NEW Nicosia General Hospital is “today a reality”, combining new building establishments and modern equipment with the introduction of modernised managerial methods and effective administration.
In a news conference to announce the new building’s policies and medical facilities, the hospital’s Director-general Andreas Polynikis said the new hospital was already prepared to accept patients and that it had evolved from a building with equipment to a hospital ready to offer its services.
There has been an increase in medical staff, he added: “In 2005, the Cabinet approved 20 positions for doctors and they have been filled, apart from some positions for anaesthetists and radiologists.”
Medical Director Evagoras Nicolaides started off by indicating the old hospital’s employees’ “feeling of loss”, despite the improved conditions at their new place of work.
Moving on, however, Nicolaides praised the new hospital’s closed-type Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which he said would operate from the start with the most modern technology and specialised staff. A fully equipped cardiology ICU would run at the same time, he added.
The MD said there would be video cameras in operating theatres with an outside link, which would be shown in a different room and used to educate students and trainees.
Also through the new hospital’s telemedicine system, Nicolaides said, “we will be able to present incidents and with a videoconference system, we will be able to co-operate with doctors abroad.”
Operating rooms would offer central sterilisation, he added – “now we have a Central Sterilisation Department for surgical instruments”.
Greek Professor Georgios Paltopoulos – who has been employed by the Health Ministry to overlook the ICU department for the next two years and offer his expertise – said Cypriots would seriously benefit from the new hospital as it would significantly reduce the need to seek medical treatment abroad.
He added: “It is not our intention to rob patients of the opportunity to visit the private sector. The relations of this hospital with the private sector will be relations of mutual coverage for the good of the patients.”
Gavriel Kaoutsianis, Director of the Cardiovascular Clinic, expressed the conviction that by next week the first heart surgeries would start taking place.
“We will begin with thorax and artery operations, and I think we are prepared to offer the Cypriot patient high standard treatment for these ailments.”
Head of the Cardiology Department Loizos Antoniades added that new methods could be used now that hadn’t been possible in the old building.
Andreas Dietis, Director of the Neurosurgical Clinic, said “we are now in a position to deal with brain aneurisms by operating using intra-arterial methods”, while the General Surgery Director added that the new hospital would offer patients a more humane approach with the implementation of appointments.
Finally, Emergency Room Director Costas Antoniades said his department had applied a new sorting method, where nursing staff would patients according to their diagnosis and give priority to more urgent incidents.
He admitted that there had been some tension in ER since it started operating two days ago, as members of public tried to get accustomed to the new system, which differs to that of the old hospital where patients were treated in the order they arrived in.
