[BR]
In a report discussed by the committee, the House of Elders Health Committee called on the executive and legislature to help advance their demands so as to improve the quality of life of the elderly.
Among the demands they submitted are to immediately address the problem of waiting lists for surgeries or other treatments, the expansion and improvement of the institution of home care, the inclusion of expensive and innovative drugs in the GHS, the expansion of the on-call system for nursing and medical staff of state hospitals, as well as the need to create new state-run senior citizens' homes at affordable prices.
On the issue of the appointment of a permanent official of the House of Elders, which is a standing request of the Health Committee of the House of Elders, it was agreed to forward the issue to the Speaker of the House, Anita Demetriou, and to the Ministry of Finance to approve the necessary budget.
The Chairman of the Health Committee of the House of Elders, Takis Agathokleous, who presented their report on the topic, "The Third Age in front of the Coronavirus Spectrum", said that several of the problems they raised in the past have been solved and expressed the hope that they will manage to solve as many problems as possible in the future. He referred to the impact of the pandemic on the elderly and said it was imperative to improve their quality of life.
Odysseas Patsalides,[/B] from the Kyrenia Provincial Volunteer Coordinating Council (PCC),[/B] referred to the need for affordable, state-run housing for the elderly, and the problems faced by many low pensioners, since, he said, they or their families cannot afford private housing which costs between €1,500 and €2,000 a month on average.
Chryso Argyrou of the House of Elders Coordination said that perhaps a plan for the government to work with the voluntary movement to build structures to house elderly people at affordable prices, as was the case with the construction of multi-purpose centres in the past, could be reintroduced.
He also said that when the House of Elders was launched 23 years ago, and had the Nicosia Volunteer Corps visit some remote communities, all the elderly there asked for was that they wanted company and a doctor.
"Unfortunately, however, after 23 years, we did not succeed," he said, adding that it should be a goal to have doctors in remote communities.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said that the Ministry prepared and submitted a memorandum with their positions on the requests of the House of Elders Health Committee.
He said the Ministry of Health is promoting the development of a National Strategy for Older Persons and a committee has already been set up and it is expected that a workshop will be set up to invite all stakeholders so that all views and suggestions can be recorded.
The chairman of the committee, Efthimios Diplaros, said they will come back to discuss the memorandum after studying it.
Regarding the issue of on-call duty, the representative of the Health Insurance Organisation, Efi Kammitsi,
said that on-call duty will start in June and the participation of doctors will be mandatory. The effort, she said, is to have doctors on call for adults and children every day at some centres in each province so that they can meet people's primary care needs during non-regular working hours and on weekends.
The spokesman for the State Health Services Organisation (SHSO), Haralambos Harilaou said that public hospitals are the only provider that primarily treats all the elderly and that they are at the disposal of the House of Elders Health Committee to discuss with them what they want about the services offered by the SHSO.
Source: KYPE
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
Source
