The Cyprus Nurses Union has filed a serious complaint about the danger faced by two patients due to inadequate care at Nicosia General Hospital.
Union general secretary Savvas Iakovou said the two patients were admitted through the Accident and Emergency Department but were not transferred to their designated wards. Instead, he said, they were placed temporarily in another ward which, he alleged, was not operating normally due to overcrowding and staff shortages.
“We don’t have the wards staffed because we don’t have personnel. These are decisions by the Organisation not to fully staff the wards,” he said.
According to the complaint, the specific ward lacked necessary supervision from experienced staff, resulting in the two patients suffering cardiac arrest. “They were revived, but their lives were in serious danger. One is currently being treated in intensive care,” he noted.
Iakovou’s complaint provoked a strong reaction from the State Health Services Organisation, with spokesman Charalambos Charilaou pointing out that “cardiac arrests in a hospital are recorded daily” and adding that “at this moment at Nicosia General Hospital there are in other wards and not in the ward of the speciality they belong to, at least 20 patients. Does this mean all these people are in danger and we are putting our patients at risk?”
One case, Charilaou said, “was orthopaedic and the second concerned the speciality of pulmonology. The fact that we have overcrowding this period, as every year at this time of year, cannot justify this type of statement which does not correspond to reality.”
It should be recalled that unions representing public nurses issued announcements the day before yesterday highlighting the fact that the state health services budget for 2026 has not been approved, meaning it is not possible to recruit additional staff for state hospitals.
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