Occupational therapists to reject HIO proposal to join Gesy

The association of occupational therapists is set to reject the HIO’s (health insurance organisation) proposal to join Gesy as it contains “anachronistic conditions”, it emerged on Saturday.

Head of the association Despina Kaimi told the Cyprus News Agency that during the association’s general assembly earlier this week, they determined HIO’s proposed plan would lead occupation therapists to “scientific and professional doom.”

This is because HIO’s budget is too little and would not cover the needs of chronic patients, Kaimi said, citing a study the association undertook.

HIO proposed €12.8 million and “though it may sound like a large amount we’re talking about chronic patients which need at least 48 visits a year,” she noted.

The association believes €30m is a more suitable figure.

In the statement the association concluded “that the HIO does not have the financial capacity to ensure all the treatments required for beneficiaries, and regrets that the approach to the issue is made on purely economic criteria, without any other scientific evidence, to the detriment of patients.”

Kaimi cited autism support saying normally the needs amount to 96 visits a year. With 48 visits this is halved, highlighting there needs to be a different way of calculating those needs because a fracture that will need a certain number of treatments cannot be in the same category as a chronic condition that needs a certain number of treatments for many, many years for those individuals to achieve a quality of life.

She said the association’s recommendation was to record the actual needs in the first three years, as is the practice for new systems “to properly record the needs and the diseases, and the numbers of beneficiaries.”