OKYPY and the Ministry of Health must finally take on their responsibilities
Statement by Parliamentary Representative of AKEL-Left – New Forces Giorgos Loucaides
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 19th May 2020, Nicosia
AKEL again expresses its deep concern about the unpreparedness of the public health sector to proceed to the second stage of the implementation of the National Health Scheme (NHS). We fully share working people’s anxiety about the prevailing situation, as this was expressed through the announcements issued by the trade unions of health professionals.
We demand from the state health services (Okapi) and the Ministry of Health that they finally take on their responsibilities. They must address immediately key pending issues in view of the implementation of the NHS. They need to plan and especially this time, to implement medium-term and long-term measures to strengthen infrastructures and increase staffing in structures and organization, in equipment and consumables, in the training of staff, but also with regards labour issues so that a new wave of doctors fleeing the public health sector won’t take place, as was the case during the first stage of the NHS. AKEL has submitted comprehensive proposals towards this end and is ready to contribute further with all the means at its disposal.
Given that everyone agrees in words that the public health sector is irreplaceable, as the pandemic has reaffirmed, and that the successful implementation of the NHS is completely dependent on the degree of the public health system’s robustness, the government ruling forces must, even belatedly, prove it in practice. Otherwise they will remain totally exposed for the deliberate undermining of this much-needed reform of public health.
