Filenews 11 May 2025
The President of the Republic, Nikos Christodoulides, announced the opening of the Rapid Transit Centre at Paphos Hospital on 2 June, after his visit to the Nicosia General Hospital.
In statements to journalists at the Nicosia General Hospital, where he visited the Rapid Transit Clinic in the Accident and Emergency Department, the President of the Republic said "I want to express my satisfaction, not only for what I saw, but much more, and fortunately there are many eyewitnesses, for what I have heard from patients who are waiting, patients who, They have already been tested for time, quality, and professionalism.
Some time ago we heard about many problems in First Aid. Problems that we have heard from society, which we have taken very seriously. A plan was made and I came today to see how this plan is implemented.
And I am happy for what I saw and even more so for what I heard from the people here at the General Hospital, which is a model. The General Hospital is under accreditation by an Organization with very high standards, the General Hospital of Nicosia is being evaluated and I can tell you that the evaluation so far shows minimal deviations from international hospitals. And you can be sure that any deviation, even if there is one, will be realized because our hospital will become state-of-the-art and the other hospitals in Cyprus will follow.
For First Aid, do you remember the issues that existed, now the patient comes to the Nicosia General Hospital, there is an immediate screening, if it is a serious incident, i.e. a danger or a potential danger to life, they enter the First Aid, while the cases for which there is no immediate danger or danger to life go to the Rapid Traffic Department that has been operating since the end of March and the patients there have the necessary care.
In addition to this, the Short Hospitalization Clinic also operates for cases, for which some may need to stay in the hospital for eight or ten hours, i.e. they do not need to go to the wards, it is something that must be monitored, therefore, it exists separately from First Aid, while the Children's Department also operates. Children do not wait in the same line as adults. I am glad to have spoken with parents who are here, about the response that exists on the part of the doctors and the hospital in general.
At the same time, there is also the Trauma Center that we inaugurated, a center of excellence for very difficult incidents, usually as a result of accidents.
The Health and Education sectors are two sectors that we as a Government are constantly investing. Let me remind you that after the meeting where specific decisions were taken, we announced investments in our hospitals and in particular in First Aid, amounting to €126 million. We will continue this new idea for Rapid Transit Centres, to relieve the First Aid Departments and focus exclusively on difficult incidents. It starts on June 2 at Paphos Hospital and we will expand to all hospitals and I am glad that the hard work that is being done, the staff that exists, the doctors who are in our hospitals, are upgrading our hospitals where they should be."
Asked if he has information on the reduction of the time spent in case care, the President of the Republic said that "usually when people see me, not only in hospitals, they very naturally complain to me about the time, about the allowances, about the response of the Public Service and so on.
I was with ten people who accompanied me. On three different occasions the patients themselves told me that the service was immediate, as soon as they came here. The same with the clinic for children who, as you understand, are also on weekends, where there is further workload, due to the data that exist outside the hospital.
And it's something that, frankly, is one of the issues, about which I'm particularly satisfied with what I've heard from people. The doctors did not mention them to me in order to present me with a different state of affairs. They were from the world, from patients.
And I am happy about this great effort to upgrade our hospitals even more, for which there is another dimension that I would like to mention. The equipment that exists in public hospitals is state-of-the-art equipment and let me remind you, I said it again, growing up, hospitals were where difficult incidents ended up. This continues to happen, we are here, we will support our hospitals even more.
The Nicosia General Hospital is in the final stage of accreditation through an evaluation we will go to all hospitals. On June 2nd the Rapid Traffic in Paphos begins, so that it can serve the Cypriot people".
