The General Healthcare System (GHS) experienced significant operational failures spanning four days, leaving doctors, pharmacists, Accident and Emergency Departments (A&E), and weekend medical services unable to properly serve patients until Sunday afternoon.
The technical difficulties, which began Thursday and continued until midday Sunday, placed patients in particularly vulnerable positions, especially those requiring diabetes medications. The Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) struggled with both incorrect implementation of new prescription limitations and the service provider’s inability to resolve system failures.
Initial software malfunctions appeared Thursday, stemming from the contractor’s now-familiar difficulties in managing specific components of the GHS software. These issues have recurred frequently since October 2023, reportedly due to internal changes at the contracting company.
While the system briefly recovered, a new failure emerged Friday specifically affecting prescription processing for diabetes medications. According to sources, this problem resulted from the HIO’s unsuccessful attempt to implement new prescription restrictions for diabetes medications in the software. This particular issue was resolved relatively quickly.
A scheduled software upgrade was planned for Saturday, intended to run from 11:30 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. Sunday. However, the software management company failed to meet this timeline, leaving pharmacies, A&E departments, and on-call GHS medical facilities unable to properly serve patients until 1:25 p.m. Sunday.
“At this moment, the software is operating normally,” HIO Director Marios Djiakouris told Philenews. “We are waiting for all service providers to begin using it and hope that we won’t experience further problems today.”
Djiakouris explained that “since October, there has been this management deficiency from the contractor, which is responsible for the problems we experience periodically, excluding Friday’s issue which was caused by incorrectly implemented rules that we removed to reintegrate properly.”
The GHS software problems are scheduled for discussion Thursday by the House Health Committee over ongoing concerns about system reliability.
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