Redux
Every journey circles home
I have countless stories from the General Hospitals of Nicosia, Larnaca and Limassol. In truth, most people who cannot afford top-tier private insurance have passed through these smelly, inhospitable places, where very little about the environment suggests recovery or care. And it's never about the behaviour of the staff. I have absolute respect for people who work under the worst of circumstances. Ok, sometimes there are some extreme incidents that make headlines...
I remember a dear friend who broke her leg abroad. Even though she was a single parent and a civil servant for over thirty years, she refused to take even her blood pressure medication from the hospital and asked me to take her to a private facility. I said, “Let’s go, and if you feel uncomfortable, I’ll drive you anywhere you wish.” I had trust in the public sector emergency services at the time, long before GESY.
It was Easter Day, and the ER at that specific moment was empty. She was greeted by a young doctor who treated her like a queen, later operated on her for five hours, and she was placed in a private room until discharge after five days, which was when she paid -as a pensioner civil servant- £25... We brought her food, lemonade, water and snacks, and I was able to stay overnight, this was long before Covid restrictions.
Which reminds me of another dearest person who spent the lockdown in a coma at the “new” Nicosia General Hospital after a stroke. When they finally released her to us, her hair was dishevelled and her body covered in wounds. She died days later, as if the only reason she had survived was to leave that place...
I also recall the Outpatient clinics at the old Nicosia Hospital, opposite the House of Representatives -where MPs enjoy fruitful discussions on health. You could wait for hours to see a doctor after going through an unspeakable queuing and red tape ordeal. I went there once out of journalistic curiosity and had the time of my life, along with a bag full of pills. I remember a woman in the waiting room who left to go to the market and returned with fresh peas, preparing food for her daughter in her Tupperware while waiting. I decided to go home, wash my hair, and come back, and it still was not my turn.
Another story comes to mind of someone dear who had a serious motorbike accident. The nurse was hostile and aggressive, everytime I brought him food, shouting at me, “Do you think food is the problem in here?” Later, when he needed cleaning, they asked me to do it.
One more story comes to mind from Larnaca. I took a dear friend at the ER with a fishing hook stuck in his finger. Neither the bleeding nor the pain from the hook embedded in his nail and finger were considered sufficient reason not to wait six hours. Oh and my dehydrated child and my dying parent at the Limassol one, with medical staff fighting about to which department he belonged and so on and so forth.
My parents, my children, my in-laws, my grandparents, all of us have passed through these hospitals at some point. Memories of good people or negligence. Not everyone can be a carer, mistakes happen, and doctors and surgeons are not gods. So yes, there will always be unbelievable stories that reach the news.
But when I read about the unannounced inspection at the Nicosia and Limassol General Hospitals, during which officials of the Audit Office found one patient left in the Emergency Department for more than 11 hours while a €1.5 million CT scanner delivered months earlier still has not been put into operation, I want to stand in the middle of Eleftheria Square and shout to the health system: Your most serious problem is not a bad human, not human error, and certainly not how the media present you. But an infected system that allows these things to happen.