Cyprus Mail 10 December 2019 - article by Annette Chrysostomou
Public nurses will go on strike on Wednesday from noon to 2pm at all general hospitals to protest incidents of violence against health professionals and against poor working conditions, nurses union Pasyno announced on Tuesday.
“The situation has reached its limits,” Pasyno’s statement said. “Nurses and other health professionals are working in third world conditions again. Although Gesy has been introduced and public hospitals have become autonomous, it is not humanly possible to manage the situation, at the risk of lives, patients and workers.”
The union has contacted the authorities, submitted memos, and taken steps to remedy the situation, knowing that it will get worse during the holidays, without results.
Pasyno said in Limassol and Paphos that due to overcrowding of the A&E departments, it will be unable to serve patients adequately unless the situation is addressed in a serious manner.
Nurses will have to judge the severity of each incident and will only deal with the urgent cases that require immediate care, it said.
The union warns the waiting time in these departments will be very long.
Civil servants’ union Pasydy also strongly condemned the use of violence against nursing staff.
Pasydy’s board of directors, in a meeting on Tuesday, discussed the serious problems faced by the first aid departments and authorised the nurses branch to handle the matter and to consider taking action.
“We call on [state health services organisation] Okypy and the health ministry to take the issues regarding the operation of A&E departments seriously and especially to deal with the lack of beds which is one of the main causes of tension in the departments,” the union said.
State nurses in Limassol have complained since September that visitors bullied them as they were irked by delays in being examined by doctors.
