‘All measures’ to be taken after shocking overtime at hospital

The state health services organisation (Okypy) takes the Auditor General’s latest report about shocking amounts of overtime at Nicosia general seriously and will take all measures needed, spokesman Charalambos Charilaou said on Tuesday.

He was commenting on the audit office’s special report on Nicosia general hospital for 2022 released a day earlier.

One of the report’s key findings related to the amounts paid to doctors there for overtime work, which amounted to €4.6 million as part of horizontal incentives, plus €2.2 million as part of vertical incentives.

The most striking case detailed in the report was a doctor who made €187,000 in overtime during the year, on top of his €76,000 salary.

Meanwhile, the deputy head of a clinic, on the same annual salary, earned an extra €230,000 in overtime and allowances.

Charilaou explained that this only happens in specialist departments where the number of doctors is very limited.

He also said that these are the earnings of these doctors, who bring millions in revenue to the organisation, adding that in no case has this been disputed.

Elsewhere in the report, a significant decline was noted in patient visits since the introduction of national health scheme Gesy in June 2019 with inpatient care being included a year later, seeing patient numbers falling by 31 per cent between 2019 and 2020.

In 2019 there were 203,000 outpatients; 133,000 in 2020; 134,000 in 2021; and 139,000 in 2022.

Likewise, there was a drop in the number of surgeries: 7,255 in 2019; 5,351 in 2020; 4,948 in 2021; and climbing back up to 5,726 in 2022.

Asked to comment on this decrease, Charilaou explained that the comparison was made with 2019, when everyone was a beneficiary and everyone visited the state hospitals.

He also reminded that the coronavirus pandemic intervened.