State doctors demand urgent probe after nurses’ union allegations

State doctors union Pasyki on Friday demanded a thorough investigation into incidents raised by the nurses’ union (Pasyno), warning that vague reassurances do not answer serious safety concerns.

Pasyki argued that the claim that cardiac arrests are reported in hospitals daily fails to address the core issue of whether the two specific incidents cited by the nurses’ union involved adequate safety conditions, sufficient staffing, and proper supervision for those patients.

Such serious allegations, it said, cannot be dismissed with vague generalities.

“Treating patients outside their specialty department is not a neutral or painless practice. It is a solution of necessity, which presupposes clear medical responsibility, sufficient and experienced staff, and organised clinical oversight. When these conditions are not ensured, the risk to the patient increases objectively,” the union added.

Claims that the two people died of heart attacks because they were being treated in the wrong wards were rejected earlier this week by the state health services Okypy.

Pasyki said it has repeatedly warned that chronic understaffing, closed beds and departments operating beyond safe limits are not abstract concerns. It emphasised that “they generate real clinical risk for patients and for the staff who are called upon to work under conditions of pressure and increased responsibility.”

According to the union, attributing the situation to seasonal overcrowding is not an adequate explanation but instead exposes long-standing failures in planning, highlighting that winter pressures are predictable.

“Prediction and timely staffing are the administration’s responsibility, not a circumstantial phenomenon,” they stressed.

The situation is further compounded, Pasyki said, by the fact that the 2026 budget of the Okypy has yet to be approved, directly limiting recruitment capacity.

“Patient safety is not suspended due to budgetary delays, nor is it shifted as responsibility onto frontline health professionals,” it stressed.

Pasyki said it expects an “immediate documented and thorough investigation of these specific incidents with clinical and organisational data, clear delineation of medical and administrative responsibility when patients are treated outside their specialty, immediate reinforcement of critical departments based on real needs and not accounting constraints, as well as public documentation of the safe operating limits of each department.

“Downplaying the problem does not protect the health system. It weakens it,” the union said.