AKEL will not permit the sell-off of public hospitals
Statement by the Head of the Health Affairs Bureau of the C.C. of AKEL Chrysanthos Georgiou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 6th June 2020, Nicosia
The Minister of Health, Konstantinos Ioannou, expresses his concern and fear regarding the viability of public hospitals in an interview with the newspaper “Politis”.
However, we, as AKEL, have been expressing this concern for some time, even before the approval of the bill for the autonomy of hospitals, without our view having been listened to. For more than three years, we have not stopped stressing the need to strengthen public hospitals so that they can operate as the backbone of the National Health Scheme (NHS), at a time when the government and the Minister of Health are being marked with a negative record in this effort.
Three years after the bill to make hospitals autonomous was approved, what had to be done was not done, and the shifting of responsibilities on health workers citing the supposed productivity as an issue does not honor anyone.
Three years after the operation of the state health services organisation OKYPY, the elementary instruments/tools were not given to health professionals. The necessary infrastructure was not created and the proper staffing was not done. Equipment was not modernized and no new departments were created. The number of beds were not expanded and no collective agreements were signed. Furthermore, the providence funds did not start their operation, hence violating the relevant legislation. No training has been provided, while the procedures and protocols have not been modernized. In addition, the lack of adequate computerization, the weakness and authoritarianism of the administration, as well as a lack of planning, etc. are all evident.
Working people are not the ones to blame for all this, but those who are in power. Shifting responsibilities on to OKYPY does not absolve anyone of responsibilities, given that the administrative structure pyramid was a government policy choice.
AKEL stresses to everyone that with the interconnection of health with productivity is an outdated parameter and involves dangers for downgrading the provision of quality health care, as well as for the prospect of selling-off the health system. We call on them to show us in which country is the model of vertical incentives model being successfully implemented.
AKEL will continue to support the reform of the health system provided it moves in the correct direction. AKEL urges everyone to take on their share of responsibility for reorganizing and modernizing the social wealth of public hospitals and stresses that it will not give away to anyone, nor will it allow the further selling-off of services or even hospitals themselves to powerful economic interests.
After all, the heroes were never “productive”.
