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It is with great pleasure and joy that I have the opportunity today to address the inauguration of the Pediatric Clinic "Amerikos Argyriou" of the Limassol General Hospital.
Allow me to say a few words about the wonderful and invaluable work of Doctor Amerikos Argyriou, who left his mark on the history of our country.
Amerikos Argyriou was born in Polis Chrysochous in 1924. He graduated from the Pancyprian High School and the American Academy of Larnaca and then studied medicine at the University of Athens. He retrained in Paediatrics in the United Kingdom. In 1970 he left the position of Director of the Pediatric Department of the Limassol Hospital and went into private practice, establishing the first private pediatric clinic in Cyprus, equipped with four incubators.
In 1970 he left the position of Director of the Pediatric Department of the Limassol Hospital and set up the first private pediatric clinic in Cyprus, equipped with four incubators. He recorded an enviable professional career of decades, serving pediatrics with selflessness and ethics, treating, relieving and comforting, as the Hippocratic Oath commands.
A man with a restless spirit and a strong sense of social responsibility, he proceeded in 1969, together with other distinguished fellow citizens, to create the Theotokos Foundation. Their highest goal was to ensure decent living conditions and care for mentally handicapped children who, until then, had been living in the shadows, despised by society and the state. With zeal and dedication and at the expense of his personal life, the doctor remained in the leadership of the institution until his old age, multiplying the services it offered, such as early intervention, education, social integration, etc. The doctor's courageous attitude and his perseverance through the Theotokos Foundation had a significant impact so that the disparagement, marginalization and rejection of people with mental retardation were transformed into acceptance and integration, without prejudice.
When, in the 1970s, new scientific and technological possibilities for the prevention of certain forms of mental retardation became apparent in Europe, the doctor felt consciously responsible for their implementation in our country. His own characteristic words. The first, in 1989, was the Newborn Screening Program to screen all newborns (public and private) for two metabolic diseases: congenital hypothyroidism and phenylketonuria. He took pains to ensure the cooperation of all paediatricians in the country and to ensure that the services were offered free of charge to all. No child was to be left out of the programme. The effort was titanic, but he was adamant. Success was not long in coming. In a very short time, affected newborns began to be identified and offered timely treatment to ensure healthy development. The Ministry of Health supported this effort and will continue to do so.
In 1991, the Centre went ahead with the second national screening programme. The Prenatal Screening Program, offering, again free of charge, to all pregnant women in the public and private sectors, biochemical tests to detect chromosomal abnormalities, the most common being trisomy 21. To date, these two programmes have been offered exclusively by the Centre, with great success and the participation of the entire population.
The doctor's inquisitive spirit and insight led him to see the need to extend the Centre's screening programmes to an area separate from mental retardation: neonatal hearing loss. In 2004, he began offering the Neonatal Hearing Screening Program. The success and acceptance of this program too was immediate. Its introduction necessitated a change in the name of the organisation, which was renamed the Centre for Preventive Paediatrics.
For his services, the visionary and pioneering doctor was made Honorary President of the Cyprus Paediatric Society and was honoured by many institutions. In 2016, he received the Medal of Outstanding Contribution of the Republic and in 2017, the European Citizen Award from the European Parliament. The memory of the doctor will remain eternally in the minds of all those who benefited and those who will benefit in the future from his work. He himself, very modestly, felt that he received more than he gave. The satisfaction he felt knowing that his efforts had saved so many children was great.
Friends,
I wish for the work that Amerikos Argyriou leaves behind, that there will be successors who will follow his example, for the good of the fellow human being and our society in general.
Warm thanks to all the organizers of the event. The Management of the Limassol General Hospital, the OCYPY, the Director of the Pediatric Clinic, Dr. Argyris Argyriou and the Councillor, Mrs. Fotini Tsiridou, for their initiative to contribute and cover important needs of the Pediatric Clinic of the Limassol General Hospital, which we will strongly support.
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