Filenews 14 November 2025 - by Marilena Panayi
It will depend on the parliamentary parties and their intentions whether Cyprus, which already has three medical schools, will also acquire university clinics and hospitals.
Yesterday's first discussion of the relevant bill in the parliamentary Committee on Health simply demonstrated, once again, the unbridgeable disagreements between stakeholders without any hope of reaching a consensual text.
A common feature of those involved in the discussion is the implicit irritation, prejudice against the rest and the readiness, on the part of some, to clash in order to pass their own positions, while the possibility of building two more floors in the Nicosia General Hospital in order to distinguish hospital doctors from university doctors was even put up for discussion, as concerns were expressed, and on the part of MPs, on whether the two groups of doctors will be able to cooperate and communicate with each other.
With these data and as everything shows, the continuation is now in the hands of the Parliament and in the readiness of the parliamentary parties to study and forward to the Plenary for its passage into law a bill which, due to exactly the same disagreements, has been going back and forth between the Ministry of Health and the Parliament for at least a decade.
In his initial statement, the Minister of Health, Michalis Damianos, presented the bill, repeatedly underlining that "Cyprus now needs a clear institutional framework for the operation of university clinics". He also stressed that "it is paradoxical that there are medical schools without corresponding university clinics", a situation that, as he said, "cannot continue".
The MPs asked for clarifications on the way hospital and university doctors cooperate with Michalis Damianos indicating that "these are not issues to discuss. Whether doctors will cooperate with each other. And now they are cooperating to a very large extent. These are obstacles that cannot prevent the passage of a law."
The Minister noted that the issue has been discussed for years without changing the positions of those involved. "The positions of the various sides are the same and are repeated each time without changing. For a decade now, the same consultation has been taking place and each side is saying the same things. So we cannot say that there was no consultation when a decade of consultations preceded it. No agreement will be reached and that is why we thought that the bill should finally come to Parliament."
In essence, he explained that the bill stipulates that, in the event of a disagreement between doctors on practical issues, the resolution will be made by the general director of the hospital.
On the part of the MPs, the question was also raised whether there is a possibility of operating a new hospital that will house only university clinics and university doctors, but also whether there is a possibility to expand the Nicosia hospital so that independent university clinics can operate in a separate space.
''We have a very large hospital, equipped, staffed, has all the specialties, I don't think it is right for the state to come and spend several million euros to operate the university clinics separately."
Answers to whether the operation of university clinics will burden the budget of the State Health Services Organization were given by the executive director of OKYPY, Kypros Stavridis, saying that with the planned model the additional expenditure will be negligible.
He explained that the operation of university clinics can enhance research, attract specialized staff from abroad and ultimately increase the number of patients and revenue, so he does not expect a substantial financial burden.
Reactions of Private Hospitals
The fact that the discussion revolved only around the state hospitals and their cooperation with the also state University of Cyprus, despite the fact that the bill also provides for the operation of university clinics in the private sector, caused the reaction of the president of the Pancyprian Association of Private Hospitals, Marios Karaiskakis, who strongly criticized all the participants, Even to the MPs, pointing out that the bill also affects the private sector, both hospitals and private medical schools.
"You have even built new floors above the Nicosia hospital for so long that the discussion has been going on and you do not take private hospitals into account at all," he said, causing the reaction of the executive director of OKYPY who hastened to point out to him that "this is Parliament, you do not have the upper hand".
Commenting on the positions of the president of PASIN, the Minister of Health said that "only OKYPY is ready to operate university clinics at the moment. The private sector still needs time."
The meeting was adjourned without setting a date for its continuation with the positions of the other bodies.
Controversy in Parliament over the bill
>Public doctors express strong disagreement – The University of Cyprus sees a "step in the right direction"
The negative attitude of public doctors to the whole discussion was evident from the beginning of the meeting with the presidents of the two unions (PASYKI and PASYDY) commenting aloud on several of the positions of the Minister of Health and the executive director of OKYPY. In fact, when reference was made to the psychiatric clinic which operates as a university, since, as Kypros Stavridis said, "we chose the best of our doctors who also happened to be an academic", the doctors said questioning "and who judged who is the best doctor and with what criteria?"
On the substance of the bill, for its part, the University of Cyprus states in its relevant memorandum that "the bill does not fully satisfy us, but we consider that it is in the right direction, quite balanced and is a compromise solution for the stakeholders" and recommends the amendment of specific provisions. For their part, the unions of public doctors state that "the bill introduces two essentially unequal regimes of doctors who perform the same clinical work in the same area: Doctors who provide services to public hospitals and university doctors. Differences in hours, on-call duties, remuneration, leaves, evaluation and development opportunities create institutionalized inequality and unfair competition within the same clinic. This undermines teamwork, erodes the professional ethos of cooperation, and puts strong pressure on morale and the retention of experienced staff. When daily work is done under unequal conditions, the cohesion of the teams collapses and the quality of care is weakened."
