Doctors ponder strike action

STATE hospitals are to go on strike if their petitions aren’t taken into consideration soon.

The strike, along with other proposals of milder industrial action, seems to be supported by the majority of government doctors.

Planned meetings with members of the Pan-Cyprian Trade Union of Government Doctors (PASYKI) will take place around Cyprus starting on October 18 in Limassol and ending on October 26 in Nicosia.

PASYKI vice-president Dr Petros Petrides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday: “The Governing Committee has informed the doctors on the way the problems are heading and will suggest measures to deal with them.”

Petrides added the majority of doctors agreed with the possibility of strike action.

The doctors’ demands include implementation of an agreement drawn up in 2001 involving the structure of medical services. It should have been implemented two years ago.

The agreement included the introduction of a system of general practitioners and the creation of new positions.
Other contentious issues include the subject of overtime and the airlifting of patients as well as the high number of patients that doctors are expected to examine daily.

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.