July 2026, Protaras. Holidays.
Thousands of tourists in the area, to the point that on some evenings the crowds make even walking around a struggle. Good news for local tourism, and good news for Cyprus as a whole.
This is a destination that proudly advertises its comforts, facilities and wide range of services for visitors. Yet it is the smallest details, the things some officials and those responsible either fail to imagine or perhaps simply fail to understand, that determine whether a destination is truly welcoming to everyone.
As the parent of a child with a chronic autoimmune condition requiring lifelong daily insulin administration, whether through injections or a pump, simply to survive, you are left dealing with medical waste that has to go somewhere almost every single day.
And yet, in this much-hyped tourist destination, there is not even one medical waste disposal box in any of the pharmacies there.
The response from pharmacists was that such disposal boxes existed only in Paralimni, meaning that any visitor who needed one would have to travel there.
Thankfully, one incredibly considerate pharmacist stepped in. Despite her pharmacy not having a medical waste disposal box, she agreed to take the insulin pens and needles and dispose of them herself.
Did nobody responsible ever stop to consider that these visitors exist too? That people with medical needs also go on holiday? That perhaps at least one pharmacy in the area could have been equipped with such a basic facility?
A simple medical waste disposal box.
Was it really so difficult to arrange for just one to be placed in at least one pharmacy in the area?
ΣΠΥΝΙΚ
