After receiving an unsatisfactory response from the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO), physiotherapists said on Tuesday they would keep fighting until budget issues in their field are resolved.
The previous day, the Cyprus physiotherapists’ association announced its members would stage a four-hour work stoppage at 9am on Thursday to resolve pending issues after they called the health minister’s intervention insufficient by the health minister.
After that statement the HIO reportedly said it intends to implement measures to deal with the abuses observed in physiotherapy.
The association said it did not understand which circumstances prevent the HIO from submitting a revised budget proposal according to its repeated suggestions, which point towards the “wrong budget for physiotherapy”.
“We have never refused meaningful dialogue, we simply refuse to have conversations without substance,” the association said.
“There is one and only issue pending in the discussion between us, and that is the correct determination of the needs of physiotherapy beneficiaries, according to the real data as they arise every day, as well as the studies we presented with the little information you have provided,” it added.
“If you want to cut benefits from the beneficiaries we will not be your accomplices,” the letter said, adding that if the HIO wants to crack down on system abuses, the association should not be the one to indicate how.
The association also said that changes the HIO has already made, without its consent, are “unacceptable” as they hinder the free access of beneficiaries to physiotherapy on an equal basis according to their individual needs.
These changes have to do with the addition of more musculoskeletal disorders on the eligibility register for physio, raising the number of monthly sessions and stretching the budget even further.
The association reiterated that it expects the health minister to mediate and return the discussion to the correct basis for determining the budget within the month.
At the same time, it said it expects the HIO to provide an updated patient list and budget breakdown, as well as an explanation why it disagrees with the association’s calculations, which at the last meeting indicated that the budget should be €28-30 million to cover the needs of all beneficiaries.