PUSHING THE TIMETABLES FOR GESY

 Filenews 21 August 2020 -Marilena Panagi

The time for the full implementation of the General Health System is pressing as from 1 September, the System must be integrated, on the basis of a decision of the Council of Ministers, the services of the Accident and Emergency Departments, the ongological services and the ambulance services. The government's decision, taken at the end of July, also provided for the integration of services by other health professionals into the GHS on 1 October 2020.

However, from the point of view of the Health Insurance Agency, which is responsible for the implementation of the GHS, it was expressed that this date had to be changed because of the procedures that were still and still in progress, and therefore, as reported by information provided by the 'F', it was decided by the Agency that nurses, midwives and other health professionals would start offering their services to the beneficiaries of the GHS from 19 October.

This means that in less than two months, the GHS will be fully implemented. That is why in the OSA all the procedures are currently under way and there are still many outstanding ones. These outstanding issues include all the agreements to be reached in the next few days by the Health Insurance Agency and the State Health Services Agency, as from 1 September the public hospitals are officially included in the GHS, as regards inpatient care, and the CSO will stop receiving the grant it received from 1 June from the Ministry of Health , following a decision taken in May by the Government with a view to the start of the second phase of the system.

With regard to the timetables and services expected to be integrated into the system, the Decision of the Council of Ministers provided for the State to meet the needs of citizens, through the services of the CSO by 31 August 2020, which means that from 1 September the GHS includes:

- TDP and ambulance services.

- Oncology/Radiotherapy services from the OKYP or the Oncology Centre of the Bank of Cyprus.

- Specialized laboratory tests by the OKY, the Karaiskakio Foundation and the Institute of Genetics and Neurology.

- Specialized medicines that were covered until now after prescription by private doctors, such as oncology drugs, biological agents for rheumatism and inflammatory bowel diseases, multiple sclerosis, etc.

- Specialized consumables from the pharmacies of the OKY or the Institute of Neurology and Genetics or the Oncology Centre of the Bank of Cyprus.

- Nutritional preparations.

Furthermore, the State will continue to cover until 18 October (unless the government's initial decision to end the service grant is implemented on 30 September) services relating to:

> Other health professionals.

> Community nursing.

> Dentistry.

> Relief care and rehabilitation (including the provision of maintenance and renewal of orthopaedic, orthotic and artificial members).

In other words, these services have been included in the GHS since 19 October.

Consultations between the Health Insurance Agency and the State Services Agency have been in full swing in recent days, as an agreement should be reached within the next few days, inter alia, on the compensation that public hospitals will receive for the services they offer under the GHS. In addition, the two organisations must also agree on the terms of their cooperation with regard to the services of the Accident and Emergency Departments as well as ambulance services.

In a statement to "F" the spokesperson of the CSP, Charalambos Charilaou, said that "the inpatient care services of public hospitals will certainly be included practically in the GHS from 1 September, in the view that the OKYY will begin to be fully compensated for the services it will offer to the beneficiaries of the System by the OAU and not by the Ministry of Health as was the case from 1 June until now and of course until 31 August".

As an OKY, Mr. Charilaou said, "we have long ensured that all operations carried out in public hospitals are recorded and codified in order to have a correct picture, draw correct conclusions and know where and how we will go from 1 September when we start to register the services we offer in the GHS software for compensation purposes".

At the same time, "as an organization we have trained our staff on the use of ghsy software in terms of inpatient care so that we are ready on September 1st". The registration process, of course, made clear "it is not complicated because we already have the software and there is no problem. The reason that the entries were not made for compensation purposes until now was because the costs of the CSP were covered by the state budget and not by the YDP'.

With regard to the inclusion of THEPs in the System, Mr. Charilaou said that "THEEPs have now been properly staffed, following the flight of doctors that had been observed in the summer of 2019 and now, when the OAU is ready we can also integrate these services into the GHS".