This project, funded by UNDP-ACT and supported by the Cyprus Ministry of Health, finalised in 2008 and is now in its analytical phase. The primary project objectives were to assess the current status of services for chronic disorders in Cyprus and to promote networking between patients’ rights groups. This was accomplished through specially designed questionnaires sent to both patients and medical care providers. The questionnaires received from patient groups will be analysed, and a scientific paper will be published in a peer-reviewed journal in due course. The outcomes will be published in a future issue of TIF Magazine.
Chronic patients support organisations who participated in the project:
- AIDS Patients’ Friends Association Cyprus
- Patients’ Rights Movement Cyprus
- The Cyprus Association of Cancer Patients and Friends
- Pancyprian Heart Patients Association
- Cyprus Haemophilia Society
- Cyprus Muscular Dystrophy Association
- Cyprus Anti-Cancer Society
- Pancyprian Antianaemia Association
- Cyprus Society for the Protection of Spastic and Handicapped Children
- Adult Congenital Heart Defects Association Cyprus
- Turkish-Cypriot Thalassaemia Society
- Turkish-Cypriot Patients’ Rights Movement
February 2007 – July 2008
The aim of this project is to improve the quality of services for chronic disease patients and to promote awareness that chronic diseases need specialised multidisciplinary services which need to be a part of the national health scheme. In order to achieve this, TIF proposed a study of the current law on patients rights in order to identify deficiencies/limitations in the law concerning the needs of chronic patients. The ultimate purpose is to promote the creation of special services in the new national health scheme for the patients with chronic diseases, with the creation of specialised treatment centres, and the establishment of multidisciplinary teams, securing specialized drugs (orphan drugs) even if the cost is too high, and the right of continuity of care for these patients. According to the national health scheme law of 2005, there is no mention/provision for these chronic diseases. TIF, in collaboration with other associations of chronic disease patients, also conducted surveys, using questionnaires prepared by the Chronic Care Group of the MacColl Institute of the USA with the aim of detecting functional deficiencies in the current system as experienced by patients (the PACIC questionnaire), and health professionals (the ACIC questionnaire). The results of these surveys were brought to the attention of the national health service committee and the medical services of the Ministry of Health, as well as patient organisations, through a seminar organised in 2008.
