Medical doctors and different Gesy service suppliers are “on the tip of verbal assaults” as a result of sufferers are uninformed, Home well being committee chairman Efthimios Diplaros mentioned on Thuesday.
Talking on the committee assembly, he mentioned verbal assaults are being launched by “sufferers who usually are not sufficiently knowledgeable about their rights and obligations.”
He added, “it has been established that in too many circumstances, Gesy service suppliers blame the medical health insurance organisation (HIO) or say Gesy won’t allow them to fulfil a request made by a affected person that they consider is unjustified.”
He additionally mentioned each the buddies of sufferers’ associations (Osak) and medical doctors have recorded circumstances of abuse in opposition to medical doctors, together with verbal assaults and threats.
“Some individuals are forcing medical doctors to do the checks they need to do. This can’t be tolerated and can’t proceed,” he mentioned.
“Medical doctors are attacked by sufferers who have no idea their rights and obligations,” he mentioned, declaring that the ignorance creates lengthy ready lists and circumstances during which sufferers want to see two medical doctors inside an hour of one another as “they really feel they will demand greater than they’re entitled to.”
These incidents, he mentioned, quantity to “abuses and distortions which might and should be corrected now 5 years have handed since Gesy was carried out.”
Trying to how the matter could be corrected, he mentioned the creation of a “affected person advocate” would remedy a number of issues. To this finish, he mentioned he has been knowledgeable by Well being Minister Michael Damianos that the invoice to create one is “at a sophisticated stage”.
As well as, he mentioned there are already specialist teams inspecting affected person complaints in contracted hospitals, and that state well being providers (Okypy) are about to launch “affected person service places of work” in all public hospitals.
Nevertheless, he mentioned, “we wish Okypy to ship us timetables for these to be carried out.”
He added that his committee has already freed up over €1 million for the HIO to hold out an info marketing campaign relating to sufferers’ rights and mentioned “sufferers urgently have to be knowledgeable and purchase the proper tradition.”
