Filenews 23 August 2022 - by Marilena Panayi
The Health Insurance Organisation declares its readiness to undertake the program of sending patients abroad as of January 1, 2023 and to leave, for the time being, the program for the referral of patients to non-GHS hospitals in Cyprus to the Ministry of Health. It does, however, intend to set up its own control mechanism for all cases.
The Ministry of Health, for its part, as "F" is informed, is preparing to deliver to the HIO on January 1, 2023 the program for the referral of patients to non-GHS hospitals in Cyprus and to keep for the time being, the program of sending patients abroad under its own responsibility, giving, however, the HIO the opportunity to exercise relevant control at any time.
An official meeting has already taken place between the two sides in the previous days, but no result has been obtained, while the HIO has asked the Ministry of Health for a detailed report on each of the cases it referred in 2022 to non-GHS hospitals, in order to make its own investigation before proceeding with the payment of any amount of money. The public debate that arose at the beginning of the month at the request of the director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Health, Christina Giannaki, to include in the GHS budget for 2023 funds of €43 million (€25 million for patient shipments abroad and €18 million for patient referrals to non-GHS hospitals in Cyprus), it seems that it will continue, although the HIO and the Minister of Health state that these issues must be resolved as soon as possible.
As a prerequisite for the transfer of the program for sending patients abroad, the HIO has set the secondment of specialized officers of the Ministry of Health to the Organization so that no problems are observed and valuable time is not lost at the expense of patients. The Ministry of Health, according to information, for the time being appears reluctant to proceed with the secondment of its officers to the HIO, while at this stage it does not even intend to grant this program to the Organization. The HIO, for its part, does not appear adamant, although it will require that it be able to check every case of a patient before making the final decision to send him to medical centres abroad or not.
For the referrals of patients to non-GHS hospitals in Cyprus, the HIO is probably reluctant to undertake the program since, among other things, it does not consider it necessary and, in addition, the law governing the operation of the GHS is probably not clear, as to the right of the HIO to trade with health service providers outside the System.
The Organization also considers that with the inclusion of rehabilitation services in the GHS by the end of the year and robotics services in early September, there will be no significant services that will be required to be covered by hospitals that are not integrated into the System.
Both for the shipments of patients abroad and for the referrals to non-GHS hospitals in Cyprus, the HIO declares itself ready to operate a mechanism that will operate on a 24-hour basis and will approve the requests that will reach it after an investigation has been made and it is established beyond any doubt that none of the hospitals and doctors of the GHS can take care of a patient.
