Tests carried out at diagnostic centres in Cyprus are already “of perfect quality”, diagnostic centres’ association (Pasydike) chairman Giorgos Kouttoukis said on Friday.
Speaking to Astra radio station, he said that instead of imposing new quality criteria on diagnostic centres, what is actually needed is for work to be done to “limit abuses” on the system.
He drew attention to the lack of protocols in place to ensure and verify the quality of service offered, and claimed the health insurers’ organisation (HIO) wishes “to give the role of diagnostics to large companies and multinationals”.
This, he said, would be achieved by the announcement of planned new quality criteria, which would in turn lead to the closure of “very many” diagnostic centres.
He went on to say that it is widely perceived in society that Cyprus’ diagnostic centres are less safe than they actually are.
“The big problem is that there was a statement made some years ago that one in every 200 people dies during MRI tests, but this has not been proven statistically,” he said.
With the aim of preventing the new criteria from being brought in, he said diagnostic centres would stage a two-hour strike, while also “taking legal action against specific persons within the HIO”.
“This is just the beginning,” he said.
Pasydike had warned as early as July that the new criteria would mean many of Cyprus’ diagnostic centres would have to close, while they had announced on Thursday that their planned two-hour strike would entail a march on the Presidential palace in Nicosia.
Kouttoukis had on Thursday called on the government to intervene on the matter, saying, “you cannot stand idly by in the face of this threat to public health”.
HIO senior officer Monica Kyriakou had explained earlier in the year that the planned new criteria are related to the maintenance carried out on and centres’ MRI scanners, as well as whether a centre has a digital information storage system.
“Nowadays, having a central digital archiving system is more than necessary, and this is something that concerns the HIO, as well as the level of technology in the machines, for example whether they are high definition and the radiation they emit,” she said.
With this in mind, the HIO decided to categorise MRI scanners into four different categories, initially based on age, but with levels and quality of maintenance also taken into account.
The four categories will then be used to calculate how much money diagnostics centres will be paid for their use, and thus to incentivise the use of newer and better-maintained equipment.
“Scanners over 15 years old are not easy to maintain, as the manufacturing companies stop making spare parts, so in order for a centre to be paid better, it will have to buy new equipment,” she said.
