Filenews 12 February 2026 - by Marilena Panayi
Explanations and clarifications from the Ministry of Health are awaited by the owners of rehabilitation centers which, with the passing of the legislation last autumn, have acquired the right to be licensed and integrated into the General Health System. Their association, however, argues that the various provisions of the legislation need serious clarification, while, at the same time, it states that many of the provisions of the law, combined with the lack of staff to staff the centers and meet the specified criteria, cause "a lot of insecurity and anxiety about the future".
"We have sent an email to the Ministry of Health requesting a meeting with the Superintendent of rehabilitation centers, (director of Medical Services), in order to raise some questions we have related to the requirements of the law and to clarify some issues for which different interpretations can be given," the representative of the Association of Rehabilitation and Recovery Centers told "F", Kostas Ioulianos. "There are, for example, issues related to the building plan, staffing, transitional provisions and some restrictions or requirements that have been included and for all this there must be an understanding with the Registrar," he added.
At the same time, he said, "we are trying and in cooperation with the association of private hospitals to ensure that we will have the necessary number of nurses at our disposal, in order to meet the conditions and criteria of the law at the time the applications for licensing are submitted. For this issue, we have addressed the Ministry of Health and we are also waiting for the solutions that will emerge for the entire health sector that is suffering from the shortage of nurses."
As Mr. Ioulianos noted, "it must be understood that nurses are not only needed by hospitals. The rehabilitation centers that, as provided by law, will be able to submit applications for licensing from February 21 must also meet the criterion of staffing and therefore this is a very serious issue for us." Beyond that, he said, "we believe that things will become clearer after the meeting we will have, the meeting we requested with the curator of rehabilitation centers so that we can all proceed with the same and correct moves for our licensing. But I do not hide from you that there is strong concern among our members about the continuation."
It is stated that after the evaluation and licensing process of these centers (six in total), there must be consultations with the Health Insurance Organization in order to promote their integration into the General Health System. On the part of the HIO, several times lately reference has been made to the problems observed in the GHS due to the lack of legislation regulating various health services, including rehabilitation services.
For the time being, however, the HIO has not clarified its intentions regarding its cooperation with the new rehabilitation centers that will now operate under this law in Cyprus, although in the past the leadership of the Organization referred to the need to expand the package of rehabilitation services offered to GHS beneficiaries through the System.
It is recalled that at the moment the GHS offers specific categories of recovery and rehabilitation services only, which are provided by only three centers, which, as the Cyprus Federation of Patients' Associations has emphasized several times, limits patients' options and, at the same time, forces patients in some cases to pay out of their own pockets to ensure what they really need.
However, it is possible that the transitional provisions of this law will occupy the Ministry of Health and the Parliament again in the coming months, as well as before their enactment, in the context of the article-by-article study of the bill, they had caused strong disagreements even between the parties during the debate in the Plenary. For this reason, after all, the passage of the law was postponed last July and was achieved with the return of the Parliament after the summer holidays.
