By Elias Hazou
THE EXECUTIVE Committee of the Pancyprian Doctors Association yesterday accused Health Minister Christos Solomis of deliberate disinformation to sway public opinion against private practitioners.
At a press conference by the association, Chairman Antonis Vassiliou suggested that Solomis was trying to stir up trouble between private practitioners and the civil service medical unions.
“The Health Minister’s actions can only be described as vengeful,” Vassiliou said, referring to a recent announcement released by the Health Ministry.
The announcement circulated to the media by the ministry reported that cleaners were often employed as nurses in private clinics.
“If this is true, then it is the ministry’s responsibility to investigate the issue,” Vassiliou stated, adding that the announcement was a ploy attempting to blacken the reputation of private practitioners.
Tensions between private practitioners and the Health Ministry have risen since the Pancyprian Association of Doctors this week walked out of the National Health Committee, a government advisory body. “It is a ghost committee,” Vassiliou said yesterday, noting that it had never actually convened to discuss health matters.
Apparently, the association walked out in protest because the ministry had not consulted it before passing a law that would allow foreigners to be employed as nurses.
Wishing to set the record straight, Vassiliou pointed out that the association did not in fact oppose the decision, but that it believed that staff needs could be satisfied by better allocation of Nursing School graduates.
“We do not ask for preferential treatment,” he said, refuting Solomis’ remarks on Wednesday that the association demanded that other unions should not “have a say in the matter.”
Vassiliou said private clinics were constantly low on staff, because nurses employed there were quickly appointed to government hospitals. He added that private clinics could not compete with the salaries and benefits given to civil servants.
As a means of ensuring “smooth” operation in private clinics, the committee suggested that Nursing School graduates should work on a contract basis in private clinics for a fixed period, after which they would be transferred to government hospitals. In this way, Vassiliou continued, private clinics would become a “sort of nurses pool” or a middle point in nurses’ career. Failing that, the government should give at least a three-month notice to clinics that some of their staff would be transferred to the civil service.
There also seems to be disagreement over Health Ministry plans to modify fees for government health services.
“If the cost of staying overnight in a (government) hospital actually costs £150, but is offered at £30 instead, the difference will eventually be payed by the taxpayer,” Vassiliou said.
He went on to say that Solomis had done nothing to institute a comprehensive national health plan, despite suggestions by the association. He added that the issue had been discussed in depth only with Solomis’s predecessor. “The last time we talked to the Health Minister (Solomis), he told us that he was preparing a National Health Plan bill to be forwarded to the House – the only thing was,this was news to us,” Vassiliou said, adding that the association had not been briefed.
There are currently 200 foreign nurses employed in private clinics. Some 100 to 150 nurses graduate each year from the Nursing School, the majority of them joining the civil service where employment conditions are far more attractive than in the private sector.
