Serious problems have been seen in offering psychological services through the national health scheme (Gesy), the Pan-Cypriot Psychologists Association (Pasypsy) said on Tuesday.
Issuing an announcement on world mental health day, the psychologists said the theme for this year’s world mental health day is ‘Mental health is a universal human right’, which is a reminder of the need to safeguard and promote the basic right to the highest possible level of mental health.
The association said that from June 1, 2021, legislation mandated that clinical psychologists be allowed access to the patient file so that they can be fully informed about a patient’s condition and provide their services in the best possible way, while the competent bodies have repeatedly recognised that it is of extreme importance to register mental health diagnoses by the clinical psychologists.
However, they said until today it has not been possible for clinical psychologists to register the verified mental health diagnoses in the patient files, leaving preliminary diagnoses in the file that are issued by personal doctors.
Another issue, the psychologists mentioned, is that the health insurance organisation (HIO) has blocked clinical psychologists offering expept psychological evaluations for people dealing with more than one mental health issue.
The announcement said that essentially through this measure, HIO removes the right to services through Gesy to patients such as abused children, abused women, chronically undiagnosed patients and other extremely vulnerable patients because at the same time that they are in need of the services of Gesy, they have need of care from the police, social welfare services, or other public services.
“We consider this attitude unacceptable on the part of HIO and call on the competent institutions and bodies to intervene so that it is removed immediately,” Pasypsy said.