Nurses are on a two-hour work stoppage on Monday morning outside the Nicosia general hospital in the wake of an attempted stabbing at the facility’s emergency department over the weekend, while a meeting has been scheduled at the Presidential Palace to discuss the matter.
Nurses’ unions and medical staff at the hospital’s A&E denounced the “extreme” incident on Saturday, which is being investigated as a murder attempt, during which a man who arrived seeking aid, pulled out a knife with which he tried to assault another patient, and punched hospital staff, including a female nurse.
The perpetrator, named by police as Christos Modestou, aged 29, was intercepted by security officers and later released. Modestou is now wanted, two days later, for the crimes of attempted murder, intended bodily harm, threats, assault with actual bodily harm, and possession and transportation of an offensive instrument.
This latest incident was the “straw which broke the camel’s back” a representative for the nurses’ union told state broadcaster CyBC at the start of the strike.
“This is not an isolated incident and we demand for our staff to be able to carry out their duties in safety,” the nurse said. He said the basic demand is for a greater police presence at A&E departments and for officers assigned to be given the authority to make arrests.
The nurses charge that one of the problems is that guards are currently only stationed at the entrances to the particular emergency department.
According to the nurses’ rep, the number of allotted security staff started falling after the Covid-19 pandemic.
State health services (Okypy) spokesman Charalambos Charilaou, addressing the incident, explained that special security guards are employed at hospitals, are on secondment from the police, and half are directly employed by the service.
“These officers are there to patrol the hospital grounds as there are many other areas which need to be secured [other than A&E] such as labs and external surgeries,” Charilaou said.
The special officers’ role is supposed to be preemptive and they are not authorised to make arrests, he confirmed. In the event that back up is needed, officers from the near-by Latsia police station are called on, he said.
President Nikos Christodoulides and Health Minister Michalis Damianos will meet nurses union General Secretary Savvas Iacovou at 10am, to discuss this latest incident as well as loose ends pertaining to the nurses’ collective agreement.
Meanwhile, Charilaou reported that despite the strike, things were “proceeding smoothly” at the general hospital, and patient care had not been compromised, while the nurse’s unions had stated in their announcement that patients would be triaged with only the most urgent cases admitted.
Over the weekend in the wake of the stabbing attempt, the Cyprus Medical Association (CMA/Pis) called for an urgent review of safety measures at accident and emergency departments in the island’s hospitals.
“Doctors and nurses are dedicated to protecting the […] lives of the public and must not be [endangered] let alone in a place like an A&E department, where the conditions are already demanding,” CMA said in its statement.
It called on Okypy and the health ministry to review safety measures which it said were clearly insufficient.
