The Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEB), following its previous interventions regarding the acute shortage of nursing staff in private hospitals and the private health sector in general, is forced – due to the developments – to return publicly, as the situation has reached the point of no return.
It is with immense disappointment and deep concern that we see the Ministry of Health submitting ultimatums to private hospitals threatening to suspend their operation due to insufficient staffing of wards and clinics with nursing staff.
The Ministry of Health has been aware of and recognized for years the problem of the shortage of nurses, instead of taking substantial, immediate and applicable measures, it chooses the easy solution for itself: the closure of private hospitals with incalculable consequences for patients, employees and the health system as a whole.
OEB, in consultation with its member hospitals and the Pancyprian Association of Private Hospitals (Member of OEB), has been calling for months on the Ministry to implement specific, simple and practical solutions for the immediate alleviation of the problem, without having adopted a single one.
OEB calls on the Ministry of Health to assume its responsibilities towards the country’s hospitals today: Either it will facilitate them to secure nurses to be properly staffed, or it will close them. The responsibility for both options lies solely with the State.
