Why medical negligence has increased in Cyprus – What Marios Matsakis says (VIDEO)

Medical examiner Marios Matsakis spoke to Protoselidos about the phenomena of medical negligence that are increasing in Cyprus.

He initially stated that there is a serious problem with medical negligence in Cyprus which has been exacerbated by the NHS system.

"I'm not against the GeSY, I'm in favor of it, but we've done a GeSY quickly and we've made a lot of mistakes." There is no quality control, there is little financial control. We cannot know if in a hospital the doctors are doing their job well, they are not checked."

He went on to say, “We've turned the patient into a customer, we've made the medical business. The way specialist doctors are paid is by the piece, the more patients they see, the more medical procedures they perform, the more money they will get. As a result, many doctors choose to perform medical procedures even where it is not necessary and hastily because the ultimate goal is financial gain. It is a human weakness that all people have and doctors have it too. The system must be changed so that we can control the quality of pharmaceutical care we have in Cyprus".

He explained that with the increase in the way medical procedures are done there is also an increase in medical malpractice.

"The Pancypriot Medical Association does not deal with the quality of medicine, there are no ways to check if you practice medicine correctly. The only way is the judiciary which means a huge inconvenience for a patient. It is very difficult to prove medical negligence in the courts of Cyprus. It may take 8-10 to go to trial and if he gets an appeal it will take 15 years," he said.