AKEL on World Health Day
The provision of health care is a right for all and not a privilege for the select few
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 7th April 2020, Nicosia
On the occasion of World Health Day, AKEL addresses a greeting of respect and gratitude to all those who are consciously and with a great sense of responsibility are serving the role of ensuring the people’s health – especially now when Cyprus, like the whole of humanity too, is confronting the coronavirus pandemic and when the provision of quality health care for all has never been so necessary.
We particularly warmly and appreciatively salute the healthcare workers of Cyprus – the medical and paramedical staff – who in adverse conditions are battling against the coronavirus on the front line of the battle. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you.
World Health Day refers at a collective level to the state’s responsibility to ensure all necessary regulations for the provision of quality health services, both in primary health care as well as in secondary and tertiary care for the same purposes. At an individual level, it refers to the responsibility of each and every one to follow a healthy lifestyle and apply healthy behaviours ensuring not only longevity, but also quality of life.
The Left considers Health as a fundamental social right, which the state has an obligation to provide to its citizens. The way the right to health care is addressed, and the ease of citizen’s access, represents an essential indicator which reflects the level of culture and social justice of states. For AKEL, the provision of health services is a right for all and not a privilege for the select few.
In today’s social conditions, safeguarding gains, and especially protecting everyone’s right to health care, is more than necessary.
We point out with concern the continuous downgrading of the public health sector and the fact of the unforgivable great delay that was observed in the whole process of its modernization and indeed in view of the implementation of the National Health Scheme (GESY). The whole situation today has proved that only public hospitals can constitute the first line of the battle to confront the pandemic.
We express our deep concern about the serious problems that the public health sector has proven to have, especially in the period of a pandemic. The ongoing understaffing of state hospitals, the lack of infrastructures, the non-covering of vital positions for the operation of state hospitals, the non-modernization of working conditions and the deficits in work safety, the shortages in necessary consumables, etc. are downgrading the quality of services. Especially today, severe problems in the health system are leading to overcrowding in hospitals, which are finding it difficult to cope despite all the conscientious efforts of staff.
AKEL declares that it shall continue to support policies that will be to the benefit of ordinary citizen’s health and society in general. AKEL will continue to oppose policies that lead to the lowering of the standards and quality of the provision of health care and that turn it into a privilege instead of a right.
AKEL will continue to struggle for the further upgrading and strengthening of the health system in Cyprus and for the solution of the problems it faces.
AKEL will continue to be a bulwark of resistance against those forces and circles exploiting or engaging in demagogy on health issues to serve petty-party considerations. We shall continue to support the public health system as the necessary backbone of the health services being provided in our country.
