Vaccine discrimination against non-Gesy patients

I have been following your news coverage of the Cyprus government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and would like to compliment you for your mostly balanced and objective reporting, which I have found appropriately critical to help holding the politicians accountable for their actions.

Therefore, I would like to bring the following to your attention:

I am a German investor legally residing in Cyprus, paying taxes and contributing to Gesy. However, I am not registered with Gesy as a patient/beneficiary, because I have a private health insurance. I am now 55 years old and would like to get vaccinated like everybody else in my age-bracket, but apparently Gesy-registered beneficiaries come first. As a non-Gesy patient, I was told to send a separate email application to  [email protected] to request an appointment, which I did. After no reply for two weeks and after sending several reminders, I finally received a phone call from the health ministry, telling me that as a non-Gesy patient, I could only get AstraZeneca. When I asked, if I could get access to the online application platform and choose the vaccine like everybody else, I was clearly told that “for non-Gesy patients, it’s either AstraZeneca or nothing”. My request to confirm that in writing (by email) was denied.

I wonder, if the above is now the government’s policy, discriminating against non-Gesy patients and effectively creating a two-class system, in order to force more AstraZeneca vaccinations onto the population.
In my opinion, that would a blatant discrimination and injustice, definitely not in line with EU legislation and values.

Andreas Haas