Filenews 14 February 2023
The bill on the operation and licensing of ambulance services is intended to be promoted before the end of his term of office by the Minister of Health Michalis Hatzipantelas, while the issue of university hospitals will occupy a final meeting today and tomorrow may be sent to the Legal Service with the aim of being put before the present Council of Ministers.
As the Minister of Health stated during his visit in the morning to Larnaca General Hospital, the "bill on ambulances, which unfortunately has been left behind, I will try to get to this too before the end of my term".
Unfortunately, he noted, "in our country there is no bill regulating the operation of ambulances." It was, Mr. Hadjipantela continued, "a bill that has been left behind."
He added that they have done a lot of work in the last 18 months and there are some minor loose ends left. "Our goal is to work as long as it takes these last few days for this cabinet to go as well," he said.
Regarding the university hospitals, the Minister of Health said that "there will be a last meeting today at the Ministry of Health and I hope tomorrow it will be sent to the Legal Service and if I manage it will also go to the Council of Ministers", while on the issue of the patient's Ombudsman, he said that it will be put before the Cabinet on Wednesday.
Asked about the visit to the dialysis unit at Famagusta Hospital, Mr. Hadjipantela said he was moved, "because I remembered the beginning of March, when I went to the hospital quite sad because I had realized how that unit worked. I feel satisfied because a lot of people told me, when you told us that this unit would work, no one believed it. They feel great satisfaction. I also saw the patients and they receive their treatments in a decent place and not in the space they were in before," he said.
Advice to the next Minister of Health
Asked to give a piece of advice to the new Minister of Health who will be appointed by the new President of the Republic, Mr. Hatzipantela said that "there are remarkable professionals in the field of health, in public hospitals and we must embrace these people because they have proven in difficult times the work they have done and no one can doubt it".
Asked where he would find himself the next day, he said that "I will rest, but I will always be interested in our hospitals and in our doctors and in our nurses."
Thanks to hospital executives
Mr. Hadjipantela in another part of his statements referred to his visits to public hospitals, noting that "from the first day I took office, it was my second home and the doctors, nurses and staff my second family".
He wants, as he said, before leaving the Ministry of Health, to visit the hospitals. "I will try to see the whole world one by one and say a big thank you to them for being by my side throughout this wonderful journey, to thank them, to hug them and to assure them that I will always be by their side," he said.
The Minister of Health addressed personal thanks "to two people who really were by my side in the two hospitals". The first, he said, is doctor Adamos Hadjipanagis "who is here with me because we were concerned about what was happening in the hospital every day" and with whom he had telephone communication even late at night, weekdays and weekends. "He always answered the phone and said, don't worry I'll jump in to see with my own eyes. We had several emergencies with young people and the doctor was informed and at any time of the day he would come to see what was happening," he noted.
Mr. Hadjipantela also thanked doctor Amalia Hadjiyianni. "Amalia, when we took over the Ministry in difficult conditions with coronavirus, we started the day with the first phone call of Rihanna to the ambulances and the second to Amalia who was always by our side. We were always concerned about coping with difficult times and we gave each other courage that we would make it. A big thank you from the State to both of them," he said.
CNA
