Transplant patients warn of measures if promised clinic does not open

Transplant patients on Tuesday warned they will protest if a promised Nicosia transplant clinic fails to materialise on September 1, as was announced over the weekend.

The state health services organisation (Okypy) announced on Sunday the specially designed clinic with a capacity to treat eight transplant patients will start operating on September 1 at the Nicosia general hospital.

So far, patients undergoing a transplant in the capital have been treated in general wards at the hospital.

Okypy said the delay for the opening of the clinic was due to Covid-19.

Its announcement led to the cancellation of a scheduled protest on the issue by the transplant patients at the Nicosia general hospital on Monday.

“Since Okypy issued an announcement saying the clinic will open on September 1, we believe it is unnecessary to protest,” the head of the transplant patients’ group Marinos Kortas told the Cyprus Mail, welcoming the decision.

However, if Okypy does not follow up with the scheduled opening of the clinic, which has been ready for months, the group is ready to proceed with further measures.

“We will keep monitoring the situation. We cannot do anything else, we will be here to protest again and demand for the clinic to open,” Kortas said.

Nationwide, transplants are only carried out at the Nicosia general hospital. Over the 11 years of operation of the transplant centre there, a total of 168 laparoscopic nephrectomies from living donors and 242 living and post-mortem kidney transplants have been performed.