Cyprus accident and emergency hospital doctors are staging 24-hour industrial action on Tuesday over critically low staff shortages that they say puts patients’ lives at risk.
According to state doctors’ union, PASYKI A&E doctors will be on strike from 7 am on 9 July till 7 am 10 July.
PASYKI argues that A&E rooms are critically understaffed thus putting patients’ lives at risk, while doctors have been working without rest over the past few months, increasing the risk of malpractice.
PASYKI claims: “Legislation on the General Health System is applied at will, with GPs not complying to the rules, with a number of them refusing to examine patients even when they are on call. This results in patients turning to the A&E Departments which are already understaffed”.
PASYKI mentions that measures announced by OKYPY the body overseeing state hospitals and their path to becoming autonomous institutions, "are insufficient " as, they note, "the Minister himself has admitted that the A&E departments are only staffed with emergency personnel".
It argues the Health Ministry has been warned on several occasions over the past years regarding the plight of doctors in state hospitals “but was slow in taking action, and only did so after industrial action was announced”.
PASYKI has called on people to back the strike as the union is fighting to resolve issues concerning public health and safety.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Konstantinos Ioannou expressed his regret over PASYKI’s stance.
In a written statement, Ioannou said: "I was sadly informed about the decision of PASYKI’s Board of Directors to go ahead with the announced strike in Accident and Emergency Departments".
"I respect the right to organize in unions, but I cannot but condemn the fact that despite measures we proposed and/or adopted for the immediate coverage of needs presented and assessed by PASYKI as inadequate, they did not counter-propose any other solutions that could minimize the problem," said Ioannou.
He added, “therefore, industrial action is not called for as opinions and demands, were taken into consideration and where possible they were adopted”.
