I am contacting you to refer to an event that has infuriated me for months and I am sure that other Cypriots have also suffered.
Specifically, from October 26, 2022 until November 2, 2022, I caught Covid. I contacted my personal doctor, and he gave me instructions over the phone to take medication.
After following the instructions of my personal doctor, through the Ariadne website, I submitted electronically the form from the company where I work justifying my absence from work as well as the message they had sent me from the government (CYREPUBLIC) to confine myself at home.
Subsequently, I received a reply from the Social Insurance department and Ariadne that my request would be investigated and they would reply to me as soon as possible.
Fast forward to January 2023, when I made countless attempts to contact the Social Insurance department, without – of course – anyone answering the phones For about a month I called daily without any response.
Then they set up the new social security line 1460. After many attempts, I managed to contact them, gave my ID number and date of birth, and they told me that I was not detected in the system.
In the course of this process, I discovered that after about 20 years of paying social insurance, my details (date of birth) had been entered incorrectly. After several phone calls and discussions with department officials, this was finally fixed.
We are now at May 8, when I am informed by phone that my request has not been accepted, since I have not submitted a medical certificate. At this point, I told them that it was impossible to ask me to contact my personal doctor to provide a medical certificate, since they did not deal with this issue for so long and it was under consideration for seven months.
I then sent them an email again with the message I had received on October 26 from the government that I am positive for Covid and need to stay at home. The message clearly shows the dates I stayed at home, and I included again the form my company had filled in where it clearly stated the reason why I could not attend work.
On the same day, I received a reply that the request for sick leave money was not accepted since I had not registered a medical certificate justifying it.
And my big question at this point is what intelligent person and especially a doctor would accept to issue a certificate seven months after my bout of Covid. It is absurd to contact my personal doctor to ask him for such a certificate seven months later. Also, how could I have such a document from the doctor since I could not visit him?
It is unacceptable that in the year 2023, public services cannot do their job properly and on time.
George Despotis
