Doctors to stage three-hour warning strike at Athalassa Hospital

Saying the relevant bodies are “deaf” to their requests for an improvement in mental health care, a group of state doctors employed at the Athalassa mental health hospital said on Thursday that they will stage a three-hour warning strike next Wednesday.

“Doctors…are unable to provide the appropriate services to patients under the conditions provided to them and can not consent to the continuation of the current situation at the Athalassa Psychiatric hospital,” state doctors’ union Pasyki said in a written statement on Thursday.

The union apologised to the public for the strike adding that “any other alternative solution has disappeared”.

The relevant authorities, despite being aware of the situation at the health care facility, have been “deaf” to the health professionals’ long-standing requests, providing them with countless unfulfilled promises, and shifting the responsibility to the doctors, the announcement added.

Athalassa’s health professionals have previously criticised the delay to implement a coronavirus protocol at the hospital, leading to the placement of a patient in an unfit room where neither health measures nor hygiene rules were observed.

A number of nurses who refused to treat the specific patient undergone a disciplinary investigation, which was the reason for state nurses’ union Pasyno’s 12-hour work stoppage on June 7.

Meanwhile other issues have arisen because of infrastructure problems, with the health services suggesting earlier this month that a helicopter had allegedly damaged the false ceiling of a newly renovated ward of the Athalassa psychiatric hospital.

The main building of the Athalassa mental hospital in Nicosia was constructed in 1964 and parts of it was declared unfit for human habitation by the town planning department in 2019.

Earlier this year, state health services organisation announced the construction of the first plan of the new mental hospital amounting to about €7.5m.