The responsibility of managing an incident is not the responsibility of a doctor alone, but of an entire team, which has a person in charge and bears responsibility for its management, the Cyprus Society of General Medicine said in a statement on the occasion of the court's decision on 20 May 2022 to convict a doctor for the tragic death of a child.
"We have witnessed the criminalisation of the practice of medicine following the verdict that the only person responsible for the tragic death of a child is a doctor and not a chain of events that led to the fatality," it notes.
The Society says that if someone suffers a head injury or a serious accident, in Larnaca the hospital still lacks proper staffing in the CICU by qualified doctors and use of treatment protocols by staff, so it is very likely that the same nightmare scenario will be repeated.
"It is regrettable that the then leadership of the Ministry rushed to cover its own responsibilities for not having a neurosurgeon and a trained emergency response team at Larnaca Hospital using treatment protocols. So instead of taking responsibility and correcting the wrongdoings immediately, they tried to mislead public opinion and relatives, corrupted the colleague and turned accusers seeking a scapegoat for the improper operation of the emergency department and with the radiology department to this day not being able to secure an x-ray opinion as required, putting the burden of responsibility on doctors who are not radiologists," it added.
This decision, it is pointed out, and the way it was handled by the Ministry of Health from the very beginning put the medical community of Cyprus on the alert, as it feels exposed.
Finally, the Society calls on the Pancyprian Medical Association (PIS) as the competent body of medical officers and the Medical Associations to take an immediate stand against the current events.
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