Government agencies, insurance organizations and unions met with President Anastasiades on Thursday to discuss the main challenges on NHS and how to move forward with the planning stages.

Health Minister Philippos Patsalis, who was present at the meeting, said the meeting was held in a good climate and the government aims at building on previous years of hard work and public dialogue.

“There are certainly different views on different subjects, but I think we had a climate of consensus in our meeting today and this is how we must operate, so that we can achieve our goals: we want a health care system for our citizens that put the patient in the centre,” Patsalis said.

The minister summarized the four main topics that were discussed in the meeting. He said the government aims at restructuring health centres within 2015 and making them autonomous. He also addressed the need to evaluate a study that is expected to be completed in 2015 by the European Commission and International Health Organisation (IHO) in order to determine which type of system is best for Cyprus. The third topic was the legislative aspect of NHS also expected to be concluded within 2015, and finally, the necessary software that is central to NHS.

The Cyprus Heath Insurance Organization was also present at the meeting and agreed to have the software in two phases, in Autumn 2016 and Spring 2017.

Source: InCyprus