Cyprus: Over 12,000 patients remain on a long waiting list to use the MRI
Cyprus: Over 12,000 patients remain on a long waiting list to use the MRI
Over 12,000 patients remain on a long waiting list to use the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at the Nicosia General Hospital in what has been a devastating last month for the image of the island’s healthcare system.
According to Phileletheros on Friday, some patients have been waiting for months for an appointment at the MRI department at the hospital while others have been told that they may not even be able to get an appointment in the near future regardless of the state of their health.
The issue has been discussed at the Ministry of Health recently with reports suggesting that the ministry could in fact turn to the private sector to help ease the problems. The same reports also suggest that eight out of the 11 clinics have agreed to assist.
An announcement is expected sometime next week according to Health Ministry officials.
Meanwhile, doctors and nurses unions argue that emplacing overtime with the current hospitals and breaking out of certain conditions laid out by international creditors which calls for no overtime to be paid between 3pm and 5pm.
“If we had MRIs at all hospitals, we wouldn’t have this problem,” one union member told state radio on Friday morning. “Even if all the private sector clinics agree to assist, then we will still have a problem because private clinics also have their own appointments that needing attending from the private sector.”
“The MRI is not being utilised 100% because of certain issues. The issue of overtime needs to be addressed as well as weekend shifts. Working night-shifts is simply not possible because it would be too costly and we would also need to take on more staff.”
“The issue that has come about because of the new ruling from the Troika would also need to be looked into. As things stand now, they are not permitting overtime for staff working between 3pm and 5pm.”
An MRI is a test that uses a magnetic field and pulses of radio wave energy to make pictures of organs and structures inside the body. In many cases, MRI gives different information about structures in the body than can be seen with an X-ray, ultrasound, or computed tomography (CT) scan.
BATTERED IMAGE
The image of the island’s healthcare system took another battering this week after the body of a stillborn baby was thrown in the bin at Nicosia General Hospital.
Τhe baby was stillborn on August 30 at Makarios Hospital in Nicosia. State coroners Eleni Antoniou and Angeliki Papetta carried out an autopsy on the child at Nicosia General Hospital on September 12.
Τhe baby’s body was not returned to the child’s parents, ending up in the rubbish instead.
The incident is part of a long list of scandals to have recently rocked the health system on the island, plainly and painfully pointing to the organisational and structural shortcomings of state hospitals and deficiencies in the quality of care.
Another case reported yesterday, revealed doctors at Paphos General Hospital had misdiagnosed a rodent bite on a toddler’s leg.
Doctors at the hospital’s casualty department misdiagnosed the animal bite on their child’s leg with that of a simple sprain.
Their colleagues at the hospital’s paedagogical department, where the child later went for treatment, realised the mistake and treated him for the bite with antibiotics.
A month earlier a gynaecologist and midwives in Paphos General Hospital failed to spot one of her patients was carrying twins. One of the babies had already died by the time he was delivered.
The woman went into labour and gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
She was returned to the ward but continued to feel labour pains and, 15 minutes later, a second baby boy, who was stillborn, was delivered. The woman and her family had never been informed she was carrying twins.
It later emerged that the gynaecologist in question had been known to have made errors in the past but had not been removed from her position despite calls from her colleagues.
Health Minister George Pamporidis described the recent incident with the baby found in the dustbin as “a failure of the system”.
Source: http://in-cyprus.com/over-12000-on-mri-waiting-list/
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