The first six months of 2019 will see a large chance in public hospitals, Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou told the Cyprus News Agency on Sunday, adding that because of upcoming changes the sector will have its biggest budget for nine years.
As far as the development of the national health scheme Gesy is concerned, he said the autonomy of state hospitals is being developed with their move to a State Health Services Organisation, which will oversee them rather the ministry of health.
“With the administrative and financial autonomy of the hospitals, the quality of the services offered will improve greatly, we will move away from a civil servant mentality,” the minister said.
In December last year a board of governors was set up while in the summer 17 posts were announced for directors of the public hospitals “because at the moment they are run by doctors,” which he said is a model that does not work.
The autonomy of the hospital will see four units set up that will oversee the running of the two hospitals of Nicosia, of Larnaca, Famagusta, Limassol, Paphos and Kyperounta in addition to the health centres around the island. These will be run by people experienced in the health sector who will be responsible for the administrative and financial operations of public hospitals, he said.
At some point in October, the minister expects the Executive and Financial director to be appointed who will in turn appoint other officials by the end of November or the beginning of December.
Meanwhile, the increased budget for 2019 includes a tripling in size of loans to cover hospital equipment and will cover the needs of the State Health Services Organisation to hire staff.
The creation of this agency, he said, “will increase the productivity of doctors because they will have the right support staff and will benefit patients who will no longer feel they are going to a public hospital where there is no-one to serve them”.
He also said the budget foresees more positions for nurses and possibly doctors. At the beginning of 2019, the new directors will have the budget at their disposal to go ahead with these new hires.
“We believe that in the first six months of 2019 there will be a huge change in the autonomous public hospitals,” the minister said. The complete autonomy of the hospitals, he added, is a process that will take two to three years.
“Each change will see a huge change in results,” he said.
As far as health centres are concerned, he said the plan was to upgrade them to create “multi-purpose centres that work increased hours”. This is already the case in several health centres in Nicosia that work until 8pm and noon on a Saturday. The aim is for the health centre in Kaimakli to follow suit next week to be followed by the one in Engomi within a couple of months.
Once the introduction of Gesy is complete all medicines used by in or outpatients will be covered by the scheme, at a cost of €1 per drug to the patient.
The medicines prescribed will be generic where they are available which will be cheaper for the state to procure, he said. However if someone wishes to use a more expensive medicine they will just have to pay the difference.
The post Introduction of Gesy to see biggest health budget for nine years appeared first on Cyprus Mail.
Read more → https://cyprus-mail.com/2018/09/30/introduction-of-gesy-to-see-biggest-health-budget-for-nine-years/
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