THE CABINET yesterday announced that a modern state hospital in the Famagusta district, which would include maternity and intensive care units, would be up and running in three years’ time.
The Cabinet’s decision came lass than 24 hours after the death of a woman who had just given birth, which some blamed on the lack of a proper hospital in the area. There was speculation yesterday said that 34-year-old Chrystalla Krassia, who died from the syndrome of eclampsy late on Tuesday, could have been saved if blood sent for a transfusion to the private clinic where she had given birth had arrived from Larnaca sooner or if there had been a state hospital closer to her home.
The state coroner has dismissed the suggestions, saying the blood would have made little difference to her condition.
The services of the existing hospital in Paralimni are considered inadequate for the area.
Work on the new hospital will begin in about three months’ time, and the hospital will be up and running in June 2004. The project will cost £1 million.
“It will include a gynaecological and maternity clinic, an intensive care unit as well as many other departments,” Health Minister Frixos Savvides said after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, insisting the timing of the announcement had nothing to do with the recent death.
But he admitted that the decision for a maternity clinic and an intensive care unit had come at the last minute and that the House had put pressure on the government to cover the medical needs of residents of the government-controlled section of the Famagusta district.
“This development will make the difference between life and death. The hospital will have many departments and that will solve problems we have with the current hospital.” Savvides said.
The minister played down claims that the recent death had anything to do with the lack of a proper hospital in the area, pledging that no one could tell what had gone wrong.
“We are trying to identify what caused her death,” he said.
A pregnant woman died in similar circumstances in Paralimni last year.
In a news conference earlier in the day at the House, DISY deputy Lefteris Christoforou criticised Health Ministry officials, who had taken up the project, for taking too long to finish.
“I have ordered an investigation into the matter to find out why they are taking so long. I have information that some officials are blocking the creation of a maternity clinic,” he claimed.
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