Filenews 6 October 2025 - by Marilena Panayi
The strong reaction of the doctors was caused by the simultaneous night raids of officials of the Audit Office in the Accident and Emergency Departments (TAEP) of the general hospitals of Nicosia and Limassol, in the early hours of October 1.
The way in which the audit was carried out and the demands of the officials of the Audit Office "was offensive and certainly exceeded, in some cases, the limits since they asked, among other things, the doctors to prove that they served a patient by presenting the data in the electronic files of the beneficiaries of the General Health System (GHS)", said the president of the Pancyprian Guild of Government Doctors, Sotiris Koumas.
"No one has the right to see the medical data of any citizen who went through the A&E," Sotiris Koumas stressed, wondering "what relationship a patient's medical data may have with the purpose of the audits of the Audit Office. No one has the right to know the medical data and what a doctor entered in a patient's file after his service. This is also a violation of patients' rights, among many others."
"Also from some doctors, who were on active duty and were in the hospital, when they were called to report to the A&E, they were asked to show their political identity to prove that they were the same people as those who were registered as doctors on duty that night. That is, you call a doctor to leave his post while he is on active duty and ask him to show you his identity. I think this is not a way for the Audit Office to exercise control."
"Furthermore, as we were informed, it was required to make phone calls to colleagues who were on waiting duty at their homes in order to check if they would report to the A&E. That is, without there being an incident, as the information that reached us says and we will certainly ask to be investigated, at 1 and 2 in the morning they called the doctors to check if they would respond. If this is indeed true, it means that other serious issues arise."
The Audit Office, said Mr. Koumas, "has every right and this is its mission, to check whether there is abuse of power or squandering of public money, etc. But this does not allow anyone to either demand to see patient files, or to insult doctors who, when asked to report to the A&E, did so. With all due respect to the Audit Office and the Auditor General, but access to the patient file is allowed only to his doctor and that is why only doctors have access to GHS files."
Regarding PASYKI, he concluded, "it is also very serious that some colleagues accepted and entered the patient files they served in order to prove it. To say things correctly."
"The specific behaviours, both by the audit officers and by the doctors themselves, are the result of a climate that has been created and needs both analysis and criticism. Unfortunately, we were the first."
