Cabinet approves subsidy for relatives of patients sent abroad

Cabinet on Wednesday approved a plan to cover the travel, accommodation and food expenses of one family member who accompanies a patient sent abroad to receive medical treatment.

Speaking after the cabinet meeting, Health Minister Michalis Damianos expressed his satisfaction with the plan’s approval, saying the request for such expenses to be covered by the government is “fair”.

He explained that the government will cover expenses for a family member of all patients sent abroad whose annual household income does not exceed €100,000, as well as all minor patients sent abroad regardless of household income.

The policy will officially come into effect next Tuesday and is expected to cost the government €4.5 million per year.

President Nikos Christodoulides had said on Monday that “we have an obligation as a state to respond and do the minimum we have to do, especially for the health and education sectors, which, for us, cannot be approached through sheer financial data.”

A total of 1,523 patients were sent abroad from Cyprus for treatment last year. They were sent to Germany, Israel, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, and Greece.

Damianos explained on Monday that “These referrals concern university clinics and reference centres in Germany, [people go] to Israel mainly for neonatal heart surgery and other serious cases and burns, to France and to the UK mainly for liver transplants, and to Belgium, Sweden, and Greece for lung transplants.”

He added that his ministry has “developed a wide and flexible network of collaborations” with leading hospitals across Europe, “which can be activated for the immediate transfer of patients for when these cases cannot be treated in Cyprus”.

“As a small country, sometimes we do not have the necessary structures for some specialised cases, nor an adequate number of such cases to ensure their effective treatment in Cyprus. However, the state has a duty to offer its citizens the necessary health services, regardless of the structures of Gesy.”