Operations at Larnaca general hospital may be improving, but the facility still has room to better its organisation as well as the quality of service to patients, MPs heard on Thursday.
Parliamentarians were reviewing the Audit Office’s recently released report on the state-run hospital in Larnaca. The report covers the year 2023.
The dossier identified a number of organisational and administrative issues impacting the quality of services to patients.
Presenting the chief findings, senior Audit Office official Michalis Vasileiou noted problems at the facility’s emergency and accidents (A&E) unit.
These included instances were patients are examined by interns rather than fully qualified doctors – at least that’s what the paperwork showed.
Moreover, the filling out of forms for admissions and examinations was found to be sub-par.
During an on-site visit to the hospital, Vasileiou said, Audit Office officials discovered poor practices in the storage of paperwork. The facility still lacks a fully computerised system.
Another issue flagged related to compensation claims filed by specialist doctors contracted with Okypy – the state health services organisation.
A number of such claims were not filed, leading to the loss of around €67,000 in compensation and also failure to update patient files.
According to Vasileiou, no mechanism exists to ensure proper and full filing of compensation claims by doctors. He conjectured that state-run hospitals in other districts may be facing the same issue.
Marinos Kallis, chairman of the Okypy board, countered that considerable improvements have taken place at the hospital’s A&E unit. The number of beds has been increased, and more staff hired, translating into higher operating costs but also better patient service.
In parliament, a representative of the Federation of Patients’ Associations (Osak) complained that – six years since the rollout of the general healthcare system – many of the problems should have been ironed out.
Osak’s Charalambos Papadopoulos said he expects Okypy to deal with such day-to-day issues rather than wait for “someone else” to point them out.
Papadopoulos also claimed that chronically ill patients have difficulty accessing medicines from state-run pharmacies contracted with Okypy.
To which an Okypy official responded that delays at these pharmacies are not the norm.
For their part, representatives of doctors and nurses unions asserted that the situation at the hospital is generally better now, compared to 2023.
Hitting back at the criticism, they said all incidents at the A&E unit are handled by specialist doctors.
They in turn complained about personnel shortages. They said A&E personnel are fatigued due to the workload, noting for example that 120 overtime shifts have been clocked since early September.
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