A 90-year-old man was admitted to the emergency department of the Nicosia General Hospital with a lung infection and low oxygen levels in the early hours of Wednesday. And he remained there for 33 hours!
It was not until his daughter complained that something needed to be done, that finally a bed was found – not in the respiratory department as it should have been, but in the cardiology department. Citizens are witnessing demeaning treatment in emergency departments across Cyprus every day.
Doctors and nurses are doing their best, but it’s not their fault if there are not enough beds to serve the patients in a reasonable time frame.
The new Minister of Health, as well as the President himself, should spend a few days in one of the state hospitals.
They should listen to the people who work there, as well as the patients. They should restructure the administrations if necessary to provide radical solutions. If more beds are needed, new ones should be created; if it’s a matter of organisation, they should see where the system is lacking.
Ministers come and go at the Ministry of Health, but the third-world conditions in our hospitals remain the same. Many times in the past, there have been complaints about the long and humiliating waiting hours for patients in the emergency rooms due to a lack of beds in the wards, without anyone breaking a sweat.
Perhaps the powers that be are not concerned because when they need care, they will go to expensive private clinics?
Π.Μ.
