More than 500 complaints submitted by patients in four months, Ombudsman tells CNA
Cyprus’ Patient Rights Officers recorded 534 complaints and requests in their first four months of operation. The complaints concern, inter alia, quality of care, waiting times, unnecessary inconvenience and information, Patient Ombudsman Marios Charalambides told CNA.
Between May 1 and August 31, 2026, 293 written complaints and 241 verbal requests were recorded, or more than 130 a month. The written complaints contained a total of 843 references to categories of patients’ rights that may have been violated.
Around two in ten written complaints concerned Accident and Emergency (A and E) departments.
Speaking to CNA almost a year after taking office, Charalambides described the complaints mechanism as ‘a useful tool’, while stressing that individual complaints are only one indicator and do not provide the full picture of patients’ rights in Cyprus.
‘The public has started using the mechanism,’ he said, adding that he expects its use to increase over time.
Quality of care was the most frequently cited category in written complaints, with 98 references, or 33%. Charalambides said this did not relate solely to medical errors, but also to negligence, service standards, continuity of care and the way individual cases are handled.
Respect for patients’ time followed with 88 references, while 80 concerned the avoidance of unnecessary inconvenience and pain.
Charalambides said there could be no fixed definition of a ‘reasonable’ waiting time, as this depended on the circumstances of each case, although clear limits and a framework were necessary.
Referring to A and E departments, he said problems remained both in patient transfers and referrals and in the service, patients receive within emergency departments.
‘Some action has been taken, but we are not at a point where anyone could say the issue has been resolved,’ he said.
Nearly half of A and E-related complaints concerned unnecessary inconvenience and pain. Charalambides also highlighted the importance of keeping patients informed while they wait.
‘It is not only the waiting time itself. It is also what information I receive while I am waiting,’ he said.
Provision of information was cited in 71 written complaints, or 24%. Charalambides said patients must not only be informed but must also understand the information they are given before consenting to treatment.
He said communication should be adapted to each patient’s needs, particularly when patients have difficulty understanding specialised terminology or in the case of older people.
‘We must make sure that what we have informed someone about, or what we have asked them to consent to, has actually been understood,’ he said.
Asked whether patients sometimes consent to treatment without fully understanding what is going to happen, Charalambides said: ‘There have been, and still are, such cases.’
According to the figures, 62% of written complaints and 58% of verbal requests concerned the public sector. Charalambides cautioned, however, against direct comparisons with the private sector because of differences in patient volumes, types of cases and services provided.
He said more data and additional forms of evaluation were needed before firm conclusions could be drawn about whether particular problems were more prevalent in either sector.
District Complaints Review Committees, the final stage of the individual complaints mechanism, became operational on October 1. Patients dissatisfied with the response received from a Patient Rights Officer may ask the relevant committee to review their case. The committee has one month to complete its examination.
Charalambides said health sector problems were often interconnected and could not be addressed in isolation.
‘Quality, time, inconvenience and information go together,’ he said, stressing the need for cooperation to identify practices that infringe patients’ rights and take corrective action.