Doctors went on a two-hour strike on Wednesday, 16th of May 2018, regarding the arrest of two public doctors in connection with the death of a 10-year-old boy from Larnaca. The members of the main doctors’ union Pasyki, are aimed to make government and the Ministry of Health aware of the problems they are facing at public hospitals. Doctors also pledged the decriminalisation of medical acts.
On his part, Pasyki chairman Soteris Koumas, speaking at a news conference, stressed that doctors did not go on a strike for communication purposes but rather to concentrate on raising awareness about the problems that doctors are facing at public hospitals.
Koumas, after expressing his sincere condolences to the family of the 10-year-old boy, condemned the way in which his colleagues had been arrested.
Chairman of the medical association, Petros Agathangelou, said the two doctors were humiliated, especially in regard to the use of handcuffs during the doctors’transfer to court, adding that the specific practice would have been avoided by the Police.
Among others, Pasyki members are asking for a plan for the reorganisation and restructuring of hospitals for the short and medium term with a view to reducing existing inefficiencies, the decriminalisation of medical acts, the development of trauma centres within hospitals, while are also urging for the establishment of protocols that comply with international standards.
