PRIVATE-sector nurses and doctors are opposed to a proposed law that would impose quotas on the number of nurses in clinics.
The House Health Committee discussed the issue at the House yesterday and, citing safety concerns, insisted that every clinic needs to have one qualified nurse on staff at all hours, which would mean four nurses daily, as well as assistant personnel, for every private clinic.
Clinics that fail to provide the minimum number of nurses will be closed.
The House Health Committee intends to submit the proposed law, which would allow for the implementation of the law on January 1, 2008.
But two years is not enough according to the doctors and nurses.
Head of the Pancyprian Doctors’ Association Antonis Vasiliou criticised the position, claiming that the law should be postponed for at least three years so that more students could graduate from nursing schools and the necessary procedures to deal with the change could be implemented.
The Medical Association has long said staff shortages are a major problem for local clinics as nursing graduates are all taken up by the public sector.
Vasiliou said that the government plans to implement a quota was “insulting” to doctors.
“For years now the clinics have been working this way [without quotas] and there hasn’t been one incident due to lack of nursing staff.”
Vasiliou also questioned why the government thought it was safe for a midwife to deliver babies in the state sector, while not considering it safe for a doctor – as opposed to an obstetrician – to deliver babies in the private sector.
The Private Nurses Organisation has also demanded that the implementation of the new law be postponed, although the nurses do not did not even think that the three years that the doctors have requested is adequate.
“We are deceiving ourselves if we think that we can solve the problem even in three years”, Private Nurses Spokesman Demetris Papapetrou said.
According to Health Ministry official Angeliki Tapakoudi, the Health Ministry has received more requests for the nursing school than the school can train.
There are currently 825 students at the nursing school who will graduate in the next three years. In January of 2006, 197 graduated from the nursing school, while 190 others graduated in Greece.
Twenty-six students are also currently enrolled at Intercollege, which offers training for assistance nurses.
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