Clinics could cease operations due to a shortage of nursing staff

Some clinics may be forced to close and operations may have to be postponed if the nursing shortage in Cyprus is “not addressed immediately”announced the Employers’ and Industry Association (ÖV).

They said the need for nursing staff in Cyprus was “not met by either the local or European labour market” and pointed to similar shortages in the nursing sector in other European Union countries.

For this reason, the “only way out”, it was said, was to recruit nurses from third countries and to “employ” third-country nationals studying nursing in Cyprus on the domestic market.

Newspaper Phileleftheros reported on Friday that Cyprus lacks between 450 and 500 nursing staff to meet the minimum required to fill all the gaps in the country’s health care system, although this number will rise as nurses retire.

In addition, around 400 nurses are being trained on the island, 120 of whom will graduate this year. However, not all of them will be able to enter the labour market immediately, as some of them are not EU citizens and even some of them do not meet the minimum Greek language skills required for employment.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Association of Private Hospitals (Pasin), Marios Karaiskakis, said Cyprus no longer had time to “hesitate or disagree”.

“The problem is already there. Hospitals are already struggling with staffing problems and cannot easily find staff“If we do not act in a timely manner … we as a state will not be able to meet our needs at all,” he said.

His association has proposed giving young people incentives to study nursing and legally tightening nursing quotas in the various sectors.

On the issue of recruiting third-country nationals, he said that his association had “proposed this for a long time”.

“We have third-country nationals studying at Cypriot nursing schools. We can and must use them“In addition, we can import nurses from third countries and the hospitals that employ them will be obliged to ensure that they learn the Greek language,” he added.

Fears of staff shortages come to light weeks after the statement by the nursing department of the Pasydy union Nurses are “often treated with contempt“ in Cyprus.

Earlier, on Friday, the nursing union Pasyno and the European Federation of Nursing Associations wrote a joint letter to Health Minister Michalis Damianou expressing their concerns about the training of nurses in Cyprus in the context of the mutual recognition of standards and professional qualifications by the European Union.

Your concerns relate to the planned reduction of the number of hours required to train a nurse in Cyprus to 3,800Such a reduction would not be compatible with the EU minimum of 4,600 hours and would, in the view of nurses, endanger patient safety and violate their human rights.

The letter said that the free movement of Cypriot nurses within the EU would be “jeopardised if we reject the directive” because their qualifications would then no longer be recognised as meeting European minimum standards.

In addition, they said, studies over the past three decades show “that a 10 percent cut in nursing training increases patient mortality by seven percent“.

They added: “Patient health and safety is of paramount importance, particularly in these very difficult times. If we are to be better prepared for the next health crisis, whatever form it may take, we cannot lower the barriers to qualifying nurses.”