The health insurance organisation on Thursday moved to defend itself from criticism after a four-year-old boy died of meningitis, with his family claiming that he had not been diagnosed in time.

“Ensuring timely, quality, and unhindered access for Gesy beneficiaries to healthcare services is the organisation’s key priority. In this context, the organisation systematically monitors the operation of contracted hospitals as well as other healthcare service providers, intervening where necessary,” it said.

It added that it “recognises the room for improvement and is taking the necessary actions”, before pointing out that around 27,000 hospitalisations occur each month in Gesy contracted hospitals.

Of those hospitalisations, it said, “cases involving the hospitalisation of patients following their transfer from another hospital correspond to 1.4 per cent [of hospitalisations] per month”.

“In the vast majority of cases, hospitalisation and service to beneficiaries are completed smoothly,” it said.

It then stressed that these facts “do not negate the seriousness of any individual incident”, but “demonstrate, however, that such problems are not the norm and allow the organisation to specifically identify areas which need improvement”.

The boy died on Friday last week, with dozens of people having demonstrated outside the Limassol general hospital, following claims that his meningitis had not been diagnosed in time.

He had developed a fever on July 8, and was eventually hospitalised in Limassol, before his parents insisted that he be transferred to the Makarios children’s hospital in Nicosia.

It appears that he suffered brain death while en route from Limassol to Nicosia.

State health services organisation (Okypy) spokesman Charalambos Charilaou had confirmed last month that an investigation into the matter had been launched.