Curious about how to navigate the healthcare system in Cyprus? In recent years, Cyprus has introduced GESY, a general healthcare system. Our writer in Cyprus, Helen, shares with us how GESY works.
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Tell me about the GESY
The number of GPs in Cyprus has risen in recent years.
The GESY is a comprehensive healthcare system in Cyprus, providing healthcare to citizens, EU and third-country nationals who hold residency and refugees. It offers users the choice of seeing a professional from both the public and private sectors. As GESY became fully operational in 2020, now feels like a good time to see how it is faring and what it is like to use.
Seeing a GP in Cyprus
Eurostat, the statistics arm of the European Commission recently surveyed the current number of physicians currently practising in EU countries. It found that Cyprus has a total of 4,419 practising doctors, which is a steady number. Plus, 121 per 100,000 inhabitants are GPs.
Generally, maybe due to the earlier complete dominance of its specialist private healthcare system, GPs have always been in the minority. Coming from the UK, I always found it very frustrating that you couldn’t visit your local GP for general illnesses. For example, if your child had an illness you had to take them to your pediatrician, and not a general doctor like in the UK.
Additionally, adults with illnesses had to decide which specialism they needed and telephone for an appointment. Alternatively, they would have to telephone the general hospital in their town for the hospital to refer them to an appropriate specialist. The good thing is that although the proportion of Cyprus GPs is still small according to the Eurostat survey when compared to the other EU countries surveyed, more GPs seem to be present in Cyprus now.
The number of GPs are rising
The introduction of the GESY healthcare system may have helped in the rise number of GPs. This is because GPs were the first category of doctors who were invited to join up their practices within the GESY system. This probably made GPs more noticeable to the Cypriot public, especially since GPs were set up by the Cyprus government as the first point of call for the public to register themselves as beneficiaries of the GESY system. Cypriots pay a deduction from their salaries to receive GESY and those from abroad are also entitled as long as they pay a fee and are resident here long-term.
Seeing a specialist doctor
Specialists in Cyprus come highly recommended.
That’s not to say that Cyprus does not have excellent specialist doctors. I highly recommend Cypriot specialist expertise in all the major health fields. Most have completed their university specialist training in the UK and Europe, and the training in Greece is also very thorough. All potential specialists training in Greece are compelled to complete general doctors training first. Then, they must spend a further two years training in their chosen specialism. I think this gives all potential doctors a thorough general grounding.
Now, most specialist physicians have joined GESY. It means that you can now visit your chosen specialist and receive the same high standard of healthcare at reduced costs. There are an array of specialist doctors on GESY too, from heart specialists and cancer specialists to psychologists and other therapists. Dentists have also joined the system.
How do I get a referral?
To benefit from the GESY system you are required to go through your local GP. They will refer you to the appropriate specialist if he/she deems it necessary. So you have to telephone your GP’s surgery for an appointment like you would in the UK. There are no time limits though like there are in the UK now – a response to your telephone call is guaranteed as long as you telephone within surgery hours. Then you would visit your GP who will then check that you are registered, and he/she will write a referral to a specialist if needed.
In emergency situations you need to telephone the general hospital in your town to access ambulance services and/or the Emergency department.
Usually, your GP will prescribe medication for your issue in the meantime. This visit will cost a standard 10 euro fee, and you will pay for any medication if it is available on the system at a reduced cost. Any medication that’s unavailable on the system means you will need to pay the full price, as was the case with the old, private system. If your GP recommends you visit a specialist, you will need to telephone the specialist surgery to make an appointment.
What are waiting times like?
Recently, I’ve learnt that because of the popularity of the lower cost for a specialist on the GESY system, a waiting list is forming, which currently stands at two months for a specialist appointment. The Cyprus government has promised to look into this to remedy it before it becomes unmanageable – and two months is much less than the two-year waiting list that seems to be the case in the UK at the moment.
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