Akel: public hospitals should be the backbone of Gesy

By Stefanos Stefanou, Akel general secretary

In your editorial ‘Akel’s approach threatens ruin of public hospitals’ (Cyprus Mail, July 12), you commented on the positions I expressed in a press conference regarding the tragic condition of public hospitals. The main thrust of your article is that staffing and supporting public hospitals are nothing but communist ideas that will lead to disaster.

The intervention of the state in national health systems through public hospitals is a position of both the European Union and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Furthermore, the positions for creating a state oncology centre, the signing of collective agreements for all employees, as well as the proper staffing of public hospitals, which Akel supports, are based on EU and WHO directives. I am certain that no one can claim that the EU and the WHO have some hidden communist agenda.

Akel’s position is that public hospitals should be the backbone of the general healthcare system (Gesy) and, therefore, it stands against any downgrading or privatisation efforts. The importance of public hospitals was highlighted during the pandemic, as they shouldered the entire burden. Without public hospitals, very little could have been achieved.

In the press conference, on behalf of Akel, I harshly criticised the State Health Services Organisation (Okypy) for not preparing and not decisively proceeding with making public hospitals fully autonomous so that they can compete with private hospitals, providing quality health services in the process. In addition, I criticised the fact that not only has Okypy not formulated a roadmap towards autonomy, but also had not proceeded with a capacity plan so that we can finally know the specific needs of the health sector in Cyprus. It is only then that rational and sustainable planning can be carried out, so that state expenditure and the taxpayers’ money can be of value.

Akel supported the extension of the funding period for public hospitals for the duration of the pandemic, but even this position was accompanied with the demand that Okypy submit a concrete plan for the support of public hospitals, including everything that should have been done and that the organisation did not actually do.

Regarding the remuneration of health professionals, Akel believes that they must be paid according to the responsibility they undertake, as well as according to the competition. Otherwise, the mass exodus of health professionals from public hospitals will continue, which is when they will be completely degraded and sold out.

Public hospitals do not exist simply to waste taxpayers’ money as was, more or less, suggested by your editorial. They exist to ensure that someone with multiple injuries can receive immediate and proper care, someone who is seriously ill can be hospitalised in a well-organised intensive care unit, a patient with complicated conditions can have somewhere to be transferred when private care is deemed unprofitable by a private hospital, and a newborn baby can receive specialised support. They exist so that a patient on haemodialysis is not on a waiting list, so that a patient with tuberculosis is not abandoned, and to ensure that there is available blood for transfusions for a thalassaemia patient. They exist for the difficult and rare cases that require experience, equipment, organisation of special clinics and availability of costly treatments. They exist to provide healthcare to all.

If your newspaper disagrees with these, that is your prerogative; we live in a democracy after all. But I would like to underline that even diehard followers of the theory that the market can magically solve everything are starting to have second thoughts. Let alone when this has to do with the critical sector of public health.

For Akel, the existence and operation of public hospitals is an imperative for Gesy to function, just like we have collectively decided; so that everyone can have access to quality health services, and so that healthcare in practice can be a right for all, rather than a privilege for few.

Stefanos Stefanou is the leader of Akel