It was no surprise to hear that the council of ministers decided on Wednesday to cover the deficits of Okypy, which runs the state hospitals until the end of 2026. Speaking after the council of ministers meeting, Health Minister Michael Damianos, said the deficit for this year is estimated to reach €40m and for the next €30m. These estimates did not take into account the need for investments in new equipment for public hospitals, most of which would reportedly be covered by the Recovery and Resilience Fund of the EU.

Damianos said that Okypy would require some time to balance its books, but the government decision also envisaged the re-negotiation of the Okypy’s action plan so that actions that cannot be implemented could be replaced with other actions that would its finances. A foreign consultancy firm will also be brought in to conduct a study on best practices, particularly with regard to the distortions in the organisation. The minister acknowledged the challenges faced because of ‘distortions’ and the pandemic in the last five years. Time was needed to put everything in order.

The government would help Okypy, where it can, to reduce expenditure and to increase revenue. He admitted that a big part of the costs was the result of constantly rising wages of the Okypy workers who have ‘public servant’ status and were entitled to annual pay increments and CoLA, regardless of their employer’s deficits. Public servants’ rights and pay increments were enshrined in law and there was nothing that could be done to change them. Some of the distortions such as civil service working hours, which mean overtime rates for afternoon work, also push up costs, but this lunacy is considered a conquest of the workers and is protected by law. And these are on top the unjustifiably high wages negotiated by public hospital doctors and nurses since the introduction of Gesy.

The fact is that we need public hospitals, because the private hospitals in Gesy are only interested in providing profitable healthcare. They do not take in elderly patients, because they could occupy a bed for one or two weeks at the low rate (the HIO pays a much lower rate for patients with illnesses that do not require surgery). Even those that go to a private A&E department are sent to the public hospital if they need to be kept in. Only public hospital would invest in medical equipment that might not be deemed profitable by private entities.

Public hospitals are necessary, but this is no justification for the taxpayer picking up the bill for grossly overpaid doctors and nurses, who are guaranteed big pay rises every year regardless of their productivity. The culture, pay and work conditions must change now, because if we are waiting for all the ‘public servant’ employees of the hospitals to retire before, finance are rationalized, the taxpayer will be covering deficits until not 2026 but 2046.