Filenews 22 September 2023 - by Marilena Panayi
After some delay and after a furious backstage between the HIO, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance, the supplementary budget of the Health Insurance Organization amounting to €67.4 million was submitted to Parliament on Thursday.
This fund will be used by the HIO for the integration of new hospitals and services into the GHS. These are three hospitals, one of which has been integrated since the beginning of September, the second (Hygeia polyclinic), will start offering services through the GHS from Monday and the third that is expected to join the system very soon. As we are informed, this is a new hospital, which will operate in Nicosia.
In addition, part of this fund concerns the integration into the GHS of the non-oncology services that are now offered by the German Oncology Center, as well as the inclusion of new services, such as podiatrist services.
As has been mentioned several times, this fund is already available in the GHS Fund and is part of the reserves of the Health Insurance Organisation.
The agreement of the Ministry of Finance was given, after intense consultations and only when the HIO committed to cover the cost of medicines (now purchased by the Ministry of Health), with the exception of a very small number of medicines, the coverage of the cost of sending patients abroad and the non-inclusion of other hospitals and Accident and Emergency Departments until the completion of a study (Capacity Planning) by the Ministry of Health.
