Cyprus Mail 7 November 2021 - by Patroclos
MAYBE I have missed something or there is some ethical point I am not aware of but the Edek leader Dr Sizo’s campaign for changing Gesy is so shameless that it almost deserves our admiration.
The skin doctor has been arguing for changes to the national health system, claiming that these would “reinforce the philosophy of Gesy and help patients.” He wants private practitioners who are not in the scheme to be able write prescriptions that would be covered by Gesy.
This will help patients, as he claimed, but it will also help private doctors that have not joined the scheme, like Dr Sizo who has a thriving private practice, something he has omitted to mention during his impassioned pleas for reinforcing the philosophy of Gesy.
Of course, like Prez Nik and the law office, Dr Sizo may have cut his links with his medical practice since taking over as Edek’s dictatorial ruler, no longer examining warts and verrucae or practicing his unrivalled Botox skills. The practice is still open, however and from what I know is run by family members, so there is a teensy-weensy bit of conflict of interest in his campaign.
Then again you cannot expect him to declare that he wants Gesy changed in order to help his family medical practice recover some of the lost revenue. That would not only be untrue, it would also be politically unethical.
PERHAPS this was why the bulk of the campaigning has been staged by Edek, which has been operating as its leader’s personal vehicle issuing daily announcements backing selfless efforts to help private patients. Surely if patients can afford to pay the steep medical fees of private doctors they can also pay the full whack for drugs and tests.
Being a true socialist, Dr Sizo wants to offer an incentive to patients who pay the high private fees, by giving them access to the cheap Gesy medicine and medical tests. This improvement in Gesy would give more patients access to private practices, showing very clearly that Sizo’s proposal is exclusively for the benefit of patients, as he has argued.
In its announcements, Edek also claimed that it was the party that was behind the establishment of the scheme. “Edek is the party that through the initiatives of Marinos Sizopoulos and his many letters to the President since 2015 contributed to the voting of the updated Gesy bill in 2017. We are the inspirers of Gesy…”
It is bewildering how a prominent skin doctor, who passionately fought for the establishment of Gesy, has refused to join it and, as a true socialist, offer his undisputed medical expertise to impoverished proletarian patients who could not afford private medical fees. Was it because Botox is not covered by the scheme?
WHAT is even more irritating is hearing the champions of Gesy, who treat it as a sacred cow, completely oblivious to the fact that it is primarily a cash cow for doctors, private hospitals and medical labs, that could eventually make it unviable.
As soon as someone dares to say that improvements need to be made to the scheme to end the abuses and the waste of money they become a target of the sacred cow lynch mob that accuses them of wanting to change its “philosophy and architecture” by bringing in private insurance.
Disy deputy leader Harris Georgiades was vilified after mentioning that some changes needed to be made to Gesy so that money was accounted for and doctors were not paid for doing nothing other than registering patients.
The Gesy lynch mob must fear that stopping the sacred cow being a cash cow would change its philosophy and architecture.
THE ROW allowed the former health minister Giorgos Pamborides, who likes to act as if he has ownership rights on Gesy because he had contributed to the drafting of the bill when he was at the ministry, some air time. Such was his commitment to Gesy that he gave up his ministerial post before it was put into practice, leaving his successor to do all the hard work.
Pamborides first castigated Dr Sizo’s proposal because it was “an architectural change that circumvents and dynamites the philosophy of Gesy.” He also had a dig at his Disy colleague Harris, warning: “If there is an attempt, either by you (Harris) or Sizopoulos (who praises you for your intentions) you will find all of us in front of you.”
Some cynics have suggested that Pamborides, who has always nursed presidential ambitions, has been riding the sacred cow in the hope of endearing himself to Akel that has still not found a candidate for 2023. The comrades are not that desperate yet, but who knows?
