Our primary aim will be the implementation of a national health care system. The persistent lapsing of time, the indecisiveness and the complete lack of avoidance of action on this subject have exposed us, not only at governmental level but nationally. Our competence at instituting and  promulgating large projects has been set into question. Here is a list of the reasons that in our mind justify a national health system and indeed make it mandatory:

 

1.The evident breakdown in the field of health between the governmental and private health care does not help in the holistic management of the public health, the effective coordination and in the uniform execution of policies. It allows for much unnecessary squandering  of finances (ie costly instrumentation which is not utilised productively (eg CT, MRI etc) whilst the utilisation of funds is inadequate.

2.The cost of private health care has gone up enormously and has become incompatible with the majority of the population’s budget. Unfortunately  this  cost will continue to rise due to the continuing incompetence of the public healthcare institutions and consequently the reduction of competitiveness of  private healthcare.

3.Experts have estimated that the  non implementation of  the National Health care System will cost us approximately 1 billion euro for the next 9 years or 110 million annually. This reflects the cost of our incompetency!

4.The role of the Ministry of Health, as it is today, reveals inconsistencies. The Ministry  is a provider of health care but also has the responsibility of supervising those that execute these. There is hence, a blatantly obvious conflict of interests involved here and this must change immediately.

Medical audit is rudimentary in comparison to other EU member states and as a consequence this has left patients rather exposed and unsupported whilst at the same time the governmental  healthcare services continue to be sheltered and without incentives to improve on those services offered.

 

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:

1.The Government and the President of the Republic must reassure , in the most formal way, that they continue to have as a target the implementation of the National Health System. We believe that the present government has covertly surrendered its efforts to implement this project with a huge cost to our society.

2.  The President must immediately appoint by contract a person to the Ministry of Health, with recognised credentials and expertise, not only in public but private care, with the authority of at least  a  Director General, whose sole aim is to implement the National Healthcare System, in collaboration with the National Insurance System and the Ministry of Finance. This person shall inform the Ministers of Health and Finance and will be accountable to the President. He will be given strict time frames based on the outcomes of observations made by the working teams that will be put into force.

3. Huge investments and timely procedures must be overcome by modern solutions.  For example, a) the cost of implementing a computerised system may be funded by income from charges imposed on using the system when the NHS commences,

 b) the autonomy of the Governmental Hospitals can wait, whilst in the meantime hope for an  improvement of the organisational distortions and give incentives to the employees,

c) the implementation of the National Health System is possible in stages ie, initially it could commence with the primary health care.

4. To intensify the public debate, so as to make the public aware of the National Healthcare System, simultaneously  with negotiations with the providers (doctors, pharmacists etc) who are known to be positively disposed towards an agreement .