Osak ‘expects response’ from Christodoulides over ambulances

The federation of Cyprus patients’ associations (Osak) said on Monday it “expects a response” from President Nikos Christodoulides to their suggestions over the future of ambulances’ operation in Cyprus.

They explained that Christodoulides had five months ago asked them in a private meeting to submit to him “a written proposal, positions, and opinions”, and that their study was “prepared in a reasonable period of time” and delivered to him.

They said they have since submitted the proposal and that they are “waiting to receive a response from the presidency in relation to the proposal we have submitted”.

Osak had submitted three options for how a national ambulance could operate, the first of which would entail the creation of a “deputy ministry of crises” or an “independent crisis service”, which would have as part of its scope the operation of all emergency services.

Under this scenario, they said, regulation of ambulances would be done “by only one agency”, thus streamlining the bureaucracy related to ambulances.

According to the proposal, their second preference would be the creation of an “independent ambulance authority”, while the third would be to create a separate department under the health ministry.

Osak chairman Charalambos Papadopoulos said the fact that private ambulances “cannot take part in everyday life” at present is a problem.

In saying this, he was referring to the fact that private hospitals which have Gesy patients who require ambulance transport request an ambulance from Gesy, which then sends an ambulance operated by the state health services organisation (Okypy).

This state of affairs had come under attack from Limassol medical centre director Andreas Pantazis last week.

He wrote an explosive letter to Health Minister Michael Damianos in which he described the current system as “discriminatory” and said it “endangers lives”.

“We consider it unacceptable and unthinkable to have ambulances and not be entitled to serve our patients with them, expecting Okypy to serve us with daily delays and be waiting hours for an ambulance,” he said.

 “Once there is a demand and the state’s ambulances cannot respond, it is the state’s obligation to provide solutions, and solutions by which the patients will not be at risk,” he said.

He then decried what he described as “discriminatory treatment in favour of the state’s ambulance service, which irreparably harms the rights of patients as well as competition”, before calling on Damianos to “intervene to correct this distortion”.