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It is a great pleasure to participate in tonight's event. My presence here with three other members of the Cabinet is, I believe, indicative of the recognition of the very important work done over the years by the Christina A. Apostolou, a charitable foundation with more than two thousand registered friends.
This is not my first attendance at a Foundation event. In the past I have also had the honour of attending as a sign of the very important work that has been done over these 18 years.
A foundation that has, among its many objectives, the support of the families of people accompanying patients abroad, a foundation of which we are proud as a society, as a State, for its multi-level contribution and which is dedicated to the memory of Christina Apostolou.
The health sector remains one of the key areas of our governance, a governance that has at the heart of its policies the human being and, in this context, their accessibility to quality health services. I have said many times in public and I will not stop saying it, I mean it, we are proving it through our actions, that for this administration the health sector, together with education, are the most important sectors. If a state cannot respond to the Health and Education sectors, it has certainly failed.
I consider it our duty as a state to ensure the provision of quality health services to citizens and this is what we are trying to do through the support, the upgrading, the modernization of the YESY, which was one of the leading social reforms in our country. At the same time, however, there are challenges that we have to face, precisely in order to ensure this important reform. The Patient Subsidy Sector of the Ministry of Health was mentioned before, the important work carried out by the Director General, the Financial Assistance Scheme for Health Services not offered in the Public Sector.
The first thing I would like to say tonight, considering the importance of Health and Education, but we are talking about Health: I would personally consider it a success for the Government, for the State, to get to a point where we do not have to send patients abroad. Because we cannot talk about a European state and have this need arise. So, along with sending patients abroad, which we are doing very well, we as a State must ensure that we have these services in our country. Then we can talk about quality health services. So this money is well spent. But at the same time, we have to invest - and we have to take this expenditure into account because it means that there is a weakness in the state, in our country, and we have to invest in these areas so that families can stay in the country. Because it is clearly easier, if I can call it easier, for these services to be provided in our country. So, this is a major challenge for the Ministry of Health, the Government under which we are working.
Until that goal is achieved, and taking into account the need for further support for patients going abroad - we have heard from eyewitnesses who are abroad precisely because of these needs - I want to announce to you today that next Wednesday the Ministry of Health will bring to the Cabinet a plan to subsidise travel and accommodation and food costs for accompanying persons abroad. This has been a request for many years. On Wednesday it will be passed by the Council of Ministers because we have an obligation as a State, as a State, to meet the minimum that we have to do, especially in the areas of Health and Education, which for us, for our government, are not approached through economic data.
I want to refer to the work of the Foundation because everything it has done over the years has been important in taking many initiatives, always in collaboration with the Federation of Cyprus Patients' Associations (CPAA). For us, foundations such as the "Christina Apostolou Foundation" and the OSAK are our closest partners in the effort to achieve all that we want in the health sector.
I would also like to tell you tonight that the next proposal to be passed by the Council of Ministers concerns a long-standing request of the Organization. The Patient Advocate will go through Cabinet. I promised this to the organisation. We have already met with the Minister, preparations have been made and very soon it will go through the Cabinet because it touches on the area that we are here tonight, of patients and the subsidy for overseas escorts.
I want to thank you for all that you have done over the years and to close by saying that in this effort you are our closest partners.
(PM/EP/MS)
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