Filenews 17 October 2025 - by Marilena Panayi
More than a hundred nurses from Greece have submitted applications for registration in the Cyprus Register of Nurses recently, according to the data presented yesterday to the parliamentary committee on Health by the representatives of the nurses.
At the same time, they said, admissions to both the CUT Nursing School and private nursing schools are increasing and this is due, as they pointed out, to a large extent to the ongoing campaign of the Ministry of Health aimed at attracting new nurses.
The shortage of nursing staff recorded in Cyprus in recent years, it was mentioned during the discussion, led to the need to look for nurses from other countries, which, however, provided that a good knowledge of the Greek language in the legislation is not easy to achieve.
For this reason, Greek nurses are the largest number of foreign nationals registered in the Register of Nurses.
The issue was raised yesterday before the parliamentary committee on health, on the occasion of a European directive on the recognition of professional qualifications of nurses trained in Romania. During the debate, MPs asked for information from the competent bodies on how to check language proficiency and whether applicants undergo examinations.
The nurses' unions pointed out that the current law requires only "elementary knowledge of Greek", which is currently checked through an oral interview conducted at the Ministry of Health.
Although no serious problems have been identified so far, they argue that the increasing flow of applications calls for a more reliable and uniform evaluation process.
On the part of the MPs, the need to ensure the level of the Greek language that foreign nurses know (apart from Greeks) was emphasized, since, as they argued, at the moment it is not ensured that "these people can really communicate with their patients".
"The good morning and good evening that seems to be valid now is not enough," they said.
