GESY - 35,000 BENEFICIARIES CHANGED DOCTORS

 Filenews 24 September 2020 - by Marilena Panagi

In recent months, beneficiaries of the General Health System have been able to leave their personal doctor when he refuses to give in to their demands, whether they relate to their referral to a specialist doctor, without prior clinical examination or concern the issue of referrals for laboratory or other diagnostic tests without the personal doctors themselves deeming it necessary.

Indicative of the fact that from 1 June until today and while in the meantime the regulation has changed and the beneficiaries of the GHS have the right to change doctors every six months and not every three months, as was previously the case, 35,000 movements have been recorded in the GHS software (not to say that all beneficiaries have left their doctor for this reason).

As the president of the Federation of Patients, Marios Kouloumas, told "F", "every day we receive specific reports from personal doctors who do not do the best for their beneficiaries, when there is no medical reason and inform us that in some cases their patients warn them that they will leave them if they do not issue a referral for a specialist doctor or for an examination that they themselves consider necessary".

Because, said the president of the Federation of Patients Associations of Cyprus, "this has not only been mentioned to us by two or three personal doctors but several personal doctors from all provinces, it is not possible to dispute. Besides, some patients contact us to tell us that they asked their doctor to send them for analysis and the doctor refused them and of course we indicate that the doctor is responsible for judging whether a patient needs analyses or not."

Therefore, he added "and after consultation we had with a number of personal doctors who confirmed the phenomenon to us with some even informing us that they have lost dozens of beneficiaries from their list because of this phenomenon, as an OSAC we have made a recommendation to the Health Insurance Agency with the aim of putting restrictions on the right of beneficiaries to change personal doctor because yes we are all talking about abuses by health professionals. , but we as an organised movement cannot accept such behaviours from our own patients, who should have known that the GHS does not, for example, cover the issue of health certificates to workers and athletes and should have started to learn the role and value of their personal doctor."

The OSAC has already sent a letter to the Health Insurance Agency containing its recommendations which provide, inter alia, for an obligation on the beneficiary to justify his decision to change personal doctor.