The situation at Nicosia General Hospital's Intensive Care Unit 2 (COVID-2) is not a matter of understaffing but of absences due to COVID 19, Press Spokesman of the State Health Services Organisation (SHSO) Haralambos Harilaou told the Cyprus News Agency.
We are treating a stable number of patients with COVID 19, it is around 220 daily and we expect that in the coming days we will see further stabilization and possible reduction of inpatients with the situation being manageable, he said.
What is occurring in the Nicosia General Hospital's Intensive Care Unit 2 (COVID-2) "is not a matter of understaffing. What is observed is that there are a number of nurses who are absent because they are coronavirus positive either because they are close contacts or they are on parental leave because their children are sick or their children are close contacts and this creates various problems."
The Organization's effort, he continued, is to strengthen as much as possible the departments that present any problems and that is where our attention is focused. And we have also provided the incentive for overtime compensation.
"We understand that in a time of crisis we all have to give our best to be able to respond adequately and we thank the nursing staff for all the superhuman effort they are making," he added.
PASYNO and PASYDY Nurses Branch, in a statement earlier today, called for the immediate resolution of staff shortages, especially in the Intensive Care Unit 2 (IVU-2) of Nicosia General Hospital.
It notes that the nurses working in the Intensive Care Unit 2 (IVU-2) of Nicosia General Hospital held, yesterday, Friday 4 February 2022, a spontaneous protest with the approval of their unions, due to the nursing understaffing in the department and the overcrowding of the Unit in recent times.
According to PASYNO and the PASYNO Nurses' Branch, "nurses in this department are working under continuous overtime in order to have the required security staff on each shift, leading to burnout. The hospital management had repeatedly assured the sector that the correct nurse to bed ratio would be ensured, which so far has not been achieved."
As they state in a statement today, "the central management of the hospital and the hospital administration must find solutions to the issue of understaffing while avoiding decisions and moves without first ensuring the proper and orderly functioning of the departments and provided that prior consultation and consultation with the staff is carried out."
"If the management of OKYPY and Nicosia General Hospital continues to overlook and downplay the real needs and does not ensure the provision of proper nursing care with safe nursing staffing and efforts are not made to solve the problems, we will have no choice but to take more forceful measures," the unions argue.
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