Unlicensed clinic reported to police as health ministry checks centres

Health Minister Neophytos Charalambides said on Wednesday that one centre offering medical treatments that should only be provided in licensed private hospitals has been reported to the police. Speaking at the presidential palace after a cabinet meeting, Charalambides said the case is now with the police and the legal service, but declined to comment further. Asked in regard to treatments such as plasmapheresis, a procedure that filters a patient’s blood, he said there was no mapping of private hospitals, because they are registered and licensed by the ministry, whereas “these cases concern exactly the opposite”. The centres in question allegedly offered procedures that the ministry believes should be carried out only in licensed private hospitals, he said. “All appropriate measures are being taken to evaluate, first of all, the services offered in these centres,” he said, and further steps will depend on the findings. The ministry knows how many centres offered such services, based on their own advertising, its inquiries or complaints it received. Some treatments were judged so invasive that they should not be offered outside licensed private hospitals, he said, as the rules for running a hospital are designed to protect patient safety. On a protest planned for Thursday outside the House by University of Cyprus medical school students, who say a bill before parliament would downgrade university clinics, Charalambides said the ministry was in open communication with academics. They had submitted proposals that, in their view, would prevent any downgrading, and these would be used in the House debate. “Considering that the students’ positions concern the same points, I believe they will be lifted,” he said. On the shortage of nurses, he said the government had decided to sponsor undergraduate students throughout their studies and was considering letting male students finish their nursing education before military service. He also defended the “controlled and limited” employment of nurses from third countries, but the “passage of legislation was a matter for the House”.