Geriatric clinic forced to close doors

Cyprus’ only geriatric clinic has shut its doors to elderly patients citing financial woes, amid an ongoing dispute with the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) it emerged on Tuesday.

The management of the Athena Clinic based in Larnaca has already written to parliament warning it would have to close down completely over financial wrangling with the HIO. It argues the HIO is not giving it enough funding to maintain its operations.

The wrangling has been ongoing since June. Though it has the capacity for 10 patients, it has only allowed for five patients due to financial reasons, the clinic’s director explained.

“All other clinics and hospitals in the country are financially viable – this is the only that isn’t. There’s only so much we can do,” HIO director Andreas Papaconstantinou told the Cyprus Mail.

He explained that based on the old system of financial criteria, the Athena clinic was eligible for funding based on 60 points, corresponding to around €120,000.

In September, following consultations, the number of units was “more than doubled”, Papaconstantinou said. By then, the HIO had already implemented a new set of criteria which made the clinic eligible for more funding and the HIO “worked really hard to help.”

Papaconstantinou underlined the clinic’s management was not required to submit any reports of its financial situation to illustrate why the funding was not enough.

Meanwhile, the clinic’s managing director Yiannos Ttafounas told the Cyprus Mail that he had appealed to MPs to intervene.

“I wrote to the HIO weeks ago and they never responded to my letter,” he said.

If he had any assurance that the HIO would try and help then he could have waited it out, Ttafounas added.

He stressed that since December 15 he has not accepted any patients because he has not been able to cover his expenses.

“I’m not even breaking even let alone making a profit.”

Asked how his planning did not foresee any financial issues, Ttafounas said his business model was based on five patients and when elderly individuals needed care and he would allow them into the clinic, he was penalised after exceeding the five patients.

“I was punished for helping people.”

Ttafounas said he was also convinced by HIO’s promise to help as much as possible, though HIO argued it had done everything possible within the legal remit to support the clinic and was even going to discuss the matter again before Ttafounas jumped the gun and wrote to parliament.

According to Papaconstantinou, Cyprus has only one geriatric doctor who works at the Athena clinic.